Darkside Beckoning
by DezoPenguin
Summary: Brutal killings terrorize the village of Morova in the Kadary Basin, and a hunter hired to protect the chief suspect must join with a follower of Zio to learn what violence the dark side of a human soul can spawn.
1. Chapter 1

The just slept the sleep of the righteous, pure, sweet, and untroubled. With no sins to expiate, they bore no tormenting dreams to disturb the rest that refreshed and prepared them for the day to come.

The wicked slept the sleep of the damned. Worn down by the weight of their own evil, their souls writhed by night. Some, unfettered by the illusions of the conscious mind, felt the red-hot blades of conscience flay them. Others felt their own insatiable desires beckon to them with visions of power, of wealth, of the objects of their cravings, visions that left them with the taste of ashes upon waking for they lacked those things in life.

The truly evil did not sleep at all, for they knew there was power in darkness, for those willing to pay its price.

_Well, sometimes the just don't sleep either_, thought the old man a bit crankily, _because we're too busy._

He wondered what had brought the old litany to mind. He hadn't heard it in years, not since his mother had made him recite it as part of a childhood punishment. Something to do with sneaking out after dark, probably. The old man wondered if his mother had ever had to deal with this much book-work. Probably not, he decided. Things had been simpler in her day.

He took a gulp of cold tea for fortification, adjusted the wick on his lamp to give better light, then reached for his quill with a sigh. Complaining wouldn't get the job done. For the next several minutes there was no sound in the old man's room besides the scratch of pen-tip on paper marking tallies and calculations. Then he stopped again and rubbed his bleary eyes. He hated working at night.

_Blasted lamp's burning down, too._ The room was growing dimmer, so he again adjusted the wick. The catch must have been slipping, since there was still plenty of oil. He'd have to tinker with it the next morning. Grumbling under his breath, he went back to his writing. This time it only took five minutes before the darkness began to creep in again. He tried to ignore it as best he could, but it became harder and harder to make out the figures.

With a curse, he angrily threw down the quill and reached for the lamp. A quarter-turn caused the flame to leap up brightly, and he picked up the pen, hoping that he hadn't splattered any ink in his fit of pique. As he began to examine the paper, the old man realized that he couldn't see it any better than before. He reached for the lamp again; this just would not do! He'd have to go fetch another lamp or perhaps a few candles.

Only then did he realize that the lamp's flame had not dwindled. On the contrary, it was flaring up three full inches high. It hadn't been slipping at all; and in adjusting it twice he'd set the fire dangerously high. Yet despite that, the room was still dim and shadowy. In fact, it was growing dimmer by the moment, the darkness creeping in from the edges. Beyond a foot or so from the table, the room was in complete blackness.

The shadows closed in. The old man flinched away, looking left and right in sudden fear. What was _happening_? He jumped to his feet, the back of his legs striking his chair and knocking it over, where it was swallowed by the darkness.

Then the shadows reached for him. He flinched back in terror, and the shadows hesitated, but only for a moment. A light flared up, searingly bright, and the darkness surged forward once again.

-X X X-

The hunter did not so much seat himself as sprawled into the visitors' chair. Dolan Brent eyed the man dubiously, surprised at his apparent ease. His outfit looked the part: leggings and boots of sandworm-hide leather dyed black, a carbon-fiber shirt, and a sleeveless, waist-length tunic of linked titanium mail. The latter was expensive, since titanium-refining was a secret of the native Motavian race; that the hunter could afford it spoke well for his skill. His sword was worn at his right hip and two small daggers at his left.

His face was squarish, with regular features and a strong chin, very typical for a hunter, but the eyes didn't match. They were a very pale green, almost colorless, and they seemed vaguely unfocused. Distant, Brent thought, as if he wasn't actually looking at you but at something a few feet in front of your face. The hair didn't match, either, being pure sea-foam white and long, past shoulder length. A red bandanna held it off his face, the only splash of bright color in his ensemble. Brent noted that the bangs were ragged, suggesting that the length was due to neglected grooming rather than some kind of fashion choice.

_Interesting_, Brent thought. The hunter's mail-shirt was polished to a high gloss, and the leather of his blade-sheaths almost reflected the light as did their metal fittings. His weapons and armor were lovingly cared for, while his person was...not. Whatever the hunter's personal issues were--and there clearly were some, even if it was merely a lack of the social graces--they had not crept into his professional competence.

_Yet._

This situation would bear watching over time, but Brent wasn't interested in time. He was interested in now, and for now Janyn Carlyle would do.

"So, do I pass the test?" Janyn sighed.

Well, a competent hunter would hardly have missed that.

"You do," Brent replied.

"Good. I've have hated to come all the way out here for nothing."

"I assure you, this isn't 'nothing.'"

Brent could not repress a shudder.

"Actually, it's a matter of murder."

"Am I supposed to catch the killer, or protect you?"

"The former." Brent was glad the hunter had identified the issue quickly.

"Good. I'm not a bodyguard. Who am I supposed to hunt down? Do you have any leads where he or she is hiding?"

Brent shook his head.

"I don't know."

The hunter's eyes narrowed.

"I'm not sure I understand you. You want me to catch a killer, but you don't know who it is?" Janyn crossed his arms across his chest. "I assume you have a town guard, constables, or whatever you call them here?"

"Of course, but--"

"Then go to them. That's what they're for."

He wouldn't meet Brent's eyes when he said it, but he still got up out of the chair.

"Wait; you don't understand!"

"I understand that I'm not a crime-solver."

"It's not that simple. I can't ask the guard; I'm afraid they are going to accuse _me_!"

Janyn paused with his hand on the doorframe.

"They--" he began, then stopped. A curious motion made what seemed like a ripple pass across his shoulders, like a sudden tensing and releasing of his back muscles.

_Strange._

But he had stopped. He was waiting.

"They think you're the murderer?"

"The victim and I...we'd quarreled, and we were business rivals."

Janyn turned his head and looked back over his shoulder.

"That's not all. It can't be. At least, it shouldn't."

This time his eyes did meet Brent's. The client licked his lips.

"Y-you'll take the job?"

"I will."

As if those words were a detonation tearing down a dam, Brent's control broke and the emotions he'd been holding back throughout the interview burst out in a sudden torrent.

"I hated the bastard!" he shouted, crashing his fist against the arm of his carved wooden chair. "I'm glad he's dead! I'd like to pin a medal on the killer if I could!"

"And yet you want me to bring him or her to justice?"

"It's better than taking credit for the good work myself." He snorted angrily. "That would be Victor Tyrell's final revenge against me, wouldn't it? Making me hang for his murder?"

"Victor Tyrell being the deceased's name?" Janyn said somewhat dryly.

"Victor Tyrell being a walking obscenity! His dirty tricks in business have cost me thousands, he's slandered my name and reputation throughout town, his thugs have assaulted my employees..." His hands were flexing with rage, Brent realized, with the urge to lock around Tyrell's throat and squeeze until the bastard's eyes popped.

But Tyrell was dead now. He couldn't do anything to Brent any more. And Brent would never have the chance to do anything to him. Part of himself was sorry to have lost that opportunity.

He took a few deep breaths to control himself, aware of the hunter's eyes on him the whole time.

"Look. Tyrell and I were in the same business. Merchants, traders who imported goods from Kadary, Aiedo, Zema, wherever, to sell locally and in the outlying villages. Morova is the second-largest town in the Kadary basin, so we can do a fair amount of trade, but the markets are small compared to someone based, say, in Kadary itself. That means the profit margins are thin and every meseta could be the difference between thriving and failure. Tyrell would use any low trick he could think of to get ahead, from spreading lying rumors to tipping off bandits to attack my carters. He was the offal of a diseased dog, and I'm glad he's dead. For eight years he's been a thorn in my side, and now that he's gone I mean to enjoy life, not give mine up because the law can't do its job right. Find the murderer, Janyn, or at least enough evidence to prove that there _is _another murderer. I'm going to be honest with you, here; frankly, I'd almost prefer that the killer got away. Justice for Victor Tyrell isn't on my list of priorities! But it's my skin on the line, and that _does_ matter. Your ultimate goal is to keep me safe; do you understand?"

"I could hardly miss it." His eyes unfocused for a second, as if he was no longer looking at Brent but somewhere inside himself, and he scowled. Was it at Brent's lack of respect for the law and Tyrell's life? At the hunter's own lack of respect--his sarcasm towards Brent? Abruptly his attention returned to the here and now and his expression became neutral once more. "I'll need to know everything you can tell me about the murder."

Brent nodded.

"It happened three days ago, or rather nights--today's the third day after the night of the murder. Tyrell was killed in his home. He had no family, only a housekeeper who slept in a different part of the house. The killer entered somehow, without traces of forced entry, and killed Tyrell in bed, using multiple slashes of a blade."

"What kind of weapon?"

"I don't know. You'd have to ask the undertaker or the guards."

"How did the killer get in?"

"I don't know that, either."

"There were no witnesses?"

"None, unless Sergeant Paul has them under wraps. But if he did have a secret witness, a suspect would be in custody, unless the sergeant wanted to collect a little blackmail instead."

"Is this Paul that kind of man? Is that why you don't trust the law to find the real killer?"

Brent opened his mouth, then shut it again. He'd known Trevor Paul all his life; both men were born and raised in Morova, within three years of each other's age. Brent wouldn't call the guard sergeant a friend, but he'd never seriously suspect Paul of corruption or dishonesty. He dragged his hand through his thinning brown hair.

Stress, that's what it was. The very real fear of very real consequences in turn giving rise to anger and doubt.

"No," he said, then repeated, "No. He isn't like that. If I'm arrested and tried, it'll be because he thinks I'm guilty. But I'm not! Tyrell had other enemies besides me. A man like that couldn't get through a day without making someone loathe him."

"Enemies like whom?" the hunter asked. "If it wasn't you, and it wasn't robbery, then it was probably one of them."

Brent sighed heavily. It was hard to sort out his own dislike of the dead man from a rational analysis of his failings. Who _else_ hated Tyrell?

"There's Ned Crain," he decided at last. "He's a..."

_What am I doing, accusing Crain?_ Brent had sudden second thoughts, but the shadow of the noose gave him courage.

"He's a crook, a thug. He runs the carters in this town, skims a percentage off the top of their pay. If a trader tries to make an end run around him, his cargo's apt to be 'lost' or his cart 'attacked by bandits,' if you know what I mean."

"I think I do," Janyn replied softly and, Brent thought, dangerously.

"Crain hangs out at a bar called the Red Dog. Watch it, though, if you look hard at him, because he had a gang of roughnecks to back him up."

Janyn nodded.

"I'm familiar with the type. Are there any other enemies?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure about servants, employees, mistresses, or offended husbands that might have wanted Tyrell dead, though I'm sure there's some of each. Oh, and probably Ovan Prentiss. The old sand-rat runs the biggest general store in town, and he's played Tyrell and I against each other for contracts for years. Though I'd expect it more likely Tyrell would have killed Prentiss, then the other way around."

"I see. I'll add him to the list, though."

Sounds of commotion began to reach them even through the closed door, raised voices, male and female. At first they were indistinct, but then Brent could hear the voice of his housekeeper protest, "I tell you, Sergeant, Mr. Brent is in a meeting and can't be disturbed!"

_Sergeant!_ Brent felt the cold grip of fear on his heart. Were they here to arrest him? Would he be dragged off to a cell, and the gallows?

"The law takes precedence over business meetings," Paul's matter-of-fact voice could be heard, and a moment later the door was thrust open.

"Sergeant Paul," Brent challenged as the law officer entered, his thick, broad-shouldered body all but filling the arched doorway, "this is starting to resemble a persecution. I've told you all I know about Victor Tyrell's murder."

"Good enough. Now you can tell me all you know about Ovan Prentiss's murder."


	2. Chapter 2

Janyn watched as his client sagged back in his chair, shocked by the guard's announcement. Fear made Brent's complexion go bloodlessly shallow; his hard green eyes seemed to lose focus for an instant before snapping back to reality.

"Prentiss is...dead?"

"Murdered. There's no mistake about it. That's two in three days, Brent." The sergeant turned to Janyn. "Who's this?"

Though the question had been meant for the merchant, Janyn answered for himself. Clients were prone to lie every so often, when they had some agenda, and Janyn rarely wanted to play along.

"Janyn Carlyle, from the Hunter's Guild. Mr. Brent hired me to look into Tyrell's murder on his behalf--and apparently this new one, as well."

The sergeant's gaze narrowed, pulling his thick eyebrows together until they were almost a single line.

"Don't trust the guard to do its job, hey?"

"Two heads are better than one."

"Yeah, but are three better than two?"

The sergeant looked Janyn up and down assessingly, so Janyn returned the favor. Paul was a typical village guard, probably the biggest man in Morova. He looked to be on the high side of thirty but he was still big-muscular instead of big-fat, implying that he worked at his job instead of lounging around on his rump. The leather breastplate--sand worm hide boiled in paraffin--was par for the course, as were the sword slung over his back and the head-cracker and coil of rope at his waist. He was undoubtedly tough, but the questions of skill, honesty, and intellect remained.

_Idiot_, Janyn told himself. _You're already in a glaring match with the local guard. Taking this job was stupid._

"You look pretty handy with a blade," Paul decided. "How long have you been working for Brent?"

"I took his job offer at the Guild yesterday afternoon. This was our initial meeting you walked in on."

"You're here to protect him?"

"I'm here to find a killer, same as you."

"And if I've already found him?"

Janyn smiled thinly.

"The Guild collected its deposit up front."

Paul's lips curled wryly.

"Good for them."

Good for Janyn and Brent, too. A man with a sense of humor was if not necessarily more quick-witted, at least likely to be more imaginative than a dour stoneface. Imagination might keep Brent a free man until Janyn could gather proof of his innocence.

If there was proof.

"I've got questions for Brent, now. Much as I'd like to perform for an audience, you're not the law. If you're serious about trying to solve this crime, though, you might want to stop by Deacon's. That's Kurtis Deacon, the undertaker. You might try out your 'two heads' theory there, hunter."

"Maybe so."

"We'll talk again."

"I hope so. I'll probably have a few questions for you the next time we meet."

Janyn got up and left the two men alone. Brent's housekeeper, a well-kept matron in her late thirties, gave him directions to the undertaker's, in between curses directed at Sergeant Paul's rudeness. Apparently Brent had won his employee's loyalty, if nothing else. It said something about him.

When two of a man's enemies were killed in three nights, it said something else.

Morova, Janyn decided as he strolled through the village, was typical of its type: dry and dusty, with dirt paths for streets and small, whitewashed buildings capped with ornamental crenelations and often domed ceilings, the domes pierced with windows to provide air and light. There were a couple of general stores, a dressmaker's, a doctor's, an open-air mart for local farmers to trade at and three bars. Janyn figured which tavern a person chose to drink at was the closest thing to a social register the village had. The Red Dog looked particularly scruffy and dilapidated, the kind of place that would suit a small-town criminal boss.

Not for the first time Janyn asked himself what he was doing there. He'd meant to walk out on Brent, to turn the job down and move on. He wasn't a crime-solver. He liked puzzles and riddles, but not the kind where people's lives were at stake.

But he'd seen village "justice" at work before. That made it almost inevitable.

The undertaker's was on the outskirts of the village, backing directly onto the cemetery. The door wasn't even closed; Janyn supposed there were some places where break-ins just weren't a problem.

He paused on the threshold and sighed. Sardonic wit, even in his own thoughts, was a sure sign that he was worried. He needed to be careful and not get too agitated, yet. He didn't know the facts, and for all he knew they might be four-square against Dolan Brent. With another deep breath, Brent stepped into the cool, dark foyer.

Some undertakers tried to formalize death, with carpets, flowers, and similar decor, to help put the bereaved at ease. Kurtis Deacon didn't appear to be one of those. The floor was bare stone, the furniture utilitarian. He clearly dealt not with comforting the bereaved survivors, but with the efficient and sanitary disposal of the deceased. A small bell not unlike those found at an inn's registration desk sat on the counter; Janyn tapped it twice.

The bell's tone was brisk and clear, and the manner of the slim, spare man who came out of a side room was similar.

"What can I do for you?"

"I'm here to inspect the body of Ovan Prentiss; Sergeant Paul said it had been taken here. I'd like to see Victor Tyrell's body too, if it's still here."

"Glad to help. Your partner's here already. Prentiss is just through there, in the embalming room." Deacon pointed to another arch.

"Thanks." _Partner? Maybe that's what Paul meant with all his two-heads comments._

"No problem. You ought to wear your badge, though. I'd have known you at once, then."

Janyn went through the indicated arch. The room was cool, almost cold, and dimly lit by the pale glow from two ceramic vessels hung from the ceiling. The light resembled that cast by certain luminescent fungi and mosses that grew in underground caves, and after a moment he realized that must be what the lamps contained.

Three waist-high tables dominated the room; a naked corpse was stretched out on one while a robed figure stood over it, touching with thin hands and muttering softly under its breath.

"Hello?"

"...six inches by..."

"Excuse me?"

"...cauterized on..."

Janyn stepped forward and tapped the examiner's shoulder. The figure spun around and the hunter nearly gasped in shock at the gruesome apparition. It took a moment before he realized the emaciated face was not some ghost or undead spirit, with pale skin pulled tightly over the bone to make a death's head of a face and a black crescent moon running from the left side of the forehead, down through the left eye, bisecting the mouth, just grazing the chin, and rising up to the right cheek. The mark was similar, he noticed, to the face-paint worn by certain villagers in the northeast, far away from the Kadary Basin, but at second glance he saw that it was tattooed on. The thought of the hollow wooden needles piercing the delicate flesh of eyelid and lip to admit the ink nearly made him shudder again.

Only belatedly did he realize that he was staring at a woman.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

She was about five-five, though she had a slight stoop that subtracted another couple of inches, and she couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds with her exaggerated thinness. Her hands were as skeletal as her face and the nails a half-inch long, but rounded rather than trimmed. What he'd taken for a robe was actually a black mantle thrown over her shoulders, worn over a simple green dress and black boots, the skirt coming to just above the knee and the boots just below. Hair the same shade as the dress was piled in an efficient knot on the back of her head, but her eyes were a disconcerting gray, like smoke or a morning fog off the sea in Termi.

A gold medallion ornamented with a steel inlay of a watchtower hung around her neck, showing just beneath the mantle's hem. Was this the badge Deacon had expected him to have?

"I'm Janyn Carlyle, a hunter from the Guild," he managed to say once past his first moments of shock. "I'm here to inspect the body of Ovan Prentiss. I have the sergeant's permission."

"You don't have mine. Still, the question of concurrent jurisdiction has never been settled. It might mean joint action is required, but it might also allow simultaneous, independent control over the whole." She tapped her thin lower lip with her forefinger's nail. "As you're here, you had might as well stay. Who is your client?"

Her voice did not match her appearance at all; it was clear and direct, even forceful.

"The trader, Dolan Brent."

"Sergeant Paul's prime suspect. Mr. Brent hired you to help clear him of the charges, of course?"

Janyn nodded.

"Not surprising, and of course I only arrived this morning; he hasn't met me and probably doesn't yet know I'm here," the woman said.

The mystery of it was getting old.

"I hate to sound ignorant," he said, "but exactly who are you and what is your authority?"

She blinked in surprise.

"No one told you? That was silly."

"Well, I think Sergeant Paul thought me finding you here would be his little joke on an uppity hunter, and Deacon assumed I was your partner on sight."

"I don't have a partner, though Zio knows it would not be a bad idea. Surely you recognize this?" She tapped the badge lightly.

"I'm afraid not."

"It's the sigil of the Order of Kadary Magistrates."

Janyn frowned.

"Kadary Magistrates? It sounds familiar, but..."

The woman shook her head.

"We were founded a year ago, after a number of criminal cases were solved in the Kadary area by hunters hired from your guild. The town council thought it was absurd that it was necessary to hire outsiders--mercenaries--to solve crimes while the guard could not. A special group of investigators was put together, hired full-time by the council. In fact, I believe that several of us were ex-hunters who preferred a permanent position to the intermittent job offers of hunting."

"I see. Why are you here, though?"

"The other villages of the Kadary Basin have entered into agreements with Kadary's council. The villages pay a yearly stipend and can in turn call upon the Magistrates to assist them to investigate crimes."

"I see. Morova covers part of the cost of your salary, and in return they can call you in if they need an expert police."

"That's right," she confirmed, nodding.

"So this case is as much yours as it is Sergeant Paul's. Brent didn't mention you."

"I doubt he knew. I only arrived this morning."

Janyn nodded.

"Do you have any problem with me being here?"

"'Neither one unbeliever nor a thousand shall stand before the faithful,'" she said. It was obviously a quotation, but Janyn couldn't place the source. "Either you're an honest hunter, in which case your help would be appreciated, or you are not, in which case I'll find out. In have no reason to object to your presence."

She said it with complete ease and confidence, as if she was merely stating an axiomatic truth. Janyn found the effect vaguely disconcerting.

"Thank you, Magistrate--?"

"Theresa Serin. You can call me Tera."

"Tera. You've obviously been checking over Prentiss's body; have you learned anything?"

She nodded, then turned to the body, while simultaneously stepping aside for Janyn to approach the corpse. As a hunter, Janyn was well familiar with violent death, and was experienced in reading the signs it left on its victims. Reading these traces in the wild often let him identify what kind of monster he might be facing. Even so, in this cool, dark room, a victim of murder stretched out naked with cold precision on a table, the lurking shadow of death was disquieting. A monster attack was unfortunate, but it was natural, a predator seeking prey. Murder was different. Murder was evil. It was that realization rather than the condition of the body that made the skin crawl up and down his spine.

"An old man," he noted. "I doubt he could have put up much of a fight, given his build, but he's been slashed and cut repeatedly."

"Many of the wounds are superficial," Tera noted. "Unless pain and shock would have caused death, only a couple are potentially mortal wounds."

"There isn't much blood. Did Deacon clean the body?"

"That's what I wondered at first, but see here?" Without apparent concern, she ran a fingertip along the edge of one wound. "It's been cauterized. All the wounds are like that. And see here; these are his clothes." She turned and picked up a pile from the floor, sorting out a shirt. "He was wearing this when he died. Look at where it's been cut."

"There aren't many bloodstains, and along the edges..." He raised his eyes, meeting Tera's gaze. "The fabric's been burnt?"

She nodded.

"It doesn't make any sense. Whatever wounded him seems to have been red-hot." She tapped a nail against her lower lip again. "You're a hunter, Janyn, so you're familiar with weapons. What might have made these wounds?"

He looked at them again.

"They're all slashes, cutting blows instead of thrusts. Too narrow and shallow for an axe; an axe strikes cleaving blows, not shallow cutting ones. A sword is more versatile, but when striking to kill it also slashes. Still, it's more likely that than a knife; the wounds are too long to easily be a knife-cut. Besides, the natural attack for a knife is to stab, not cut, not unless..."

Janyn shuddered as the thought struck him.

"Tera, if I saw a man who'd been repeatedly cut, but not fatally, with a red-hot knife, I wouldn't think he'd been in a fight, but that he'd been tortured."

Her eyes widened.

"Torture?"

Janyn nodded.

"These wounds are too consistent, wouldn't you agree? They weren't made by someone hacking wildly, without skill."

"I see. In that case, there would be varying injuries, some shallow, some deep?"

"That's right. This implies skill and deliberation."

Tera's face twisted in anger; with her emaciation the fury lent her an almost demonic aspect.

"What kind of monster could do this to an old man?"

"One with a great deal of cruelty, or else a great deal of hate."

She looked down at the body again, the darkness still in her gaze.

"Something's wrong, though. There's no indication that he was held down, or bound." Tera slid a fingertip over the corpse's wrist. "No bruising, no marks from rope. If he was being tortured, he'd have struggled, fought back. He doesn't look particularly strong, but it still would have required some kind of restraint."

"Maybe so. He could have been drugged, I suppose, or held in place by techniques. Rimit, maybe. That would paralyze a person's voluntary muscle control, but leave them conscious, able to feel." He paused, then shook his head. "No, that's absurd. Rimit only lasts a minute, at most. The killer would have had to use it over and over, or else work very fast, which doesn't go together with the idea of torture."

"I agree. Chemicals are more likely, and we can test for some of them. They remain in the blood and do not metabolize unless allowed to run their course."

Helping herself to Deacon's apparatus, Tera selected a beaker and a sharp knife. Efficiently, she turned the dead man's arm, made an incision, and drained off a sample of blood.

"There's a relatively simple test for arrowkiss and a more complex one for dreamflower. _Ma'chen_ is different--it breaks down in hours and wouldn't show up even this late, but it's rare, as you can tell since it still has only its Native Motavian name."

"Even so, how would an outsider be able to drug Prentiss? Wouldn't it confirm that he was killed by one of his household?" Which, in turn, was unlikely if the crime was linked to Victor Tyrell's death.

"I don't know. Maybe after we've seen where Prentiss was killed we'll be able to answer that."


	3. Chapter 3

Ovan Prentiss's home and his shop were in the same building, with separate entrances for his personal visitors and his customers. As Brent had suggested, it was a large, prosperous-looking place; Prentiss had clearly been doing well with his business. The shop door was shut and a hand-lettered "CLOSED" sign tacked up, while a sturdy-looking man in leather armor and carrying a sword and club like the sergeant's stood at the door.

"Hey!" he grunted as they approached. "No sightseers!"

He was a little shorter than Janyn, thickly built, and running to fat, with the kind of belly usually seen on lazy men who were fond of too much drink. A typical schoolyard bully grown up into a job that let him keep up the same role.

"I know that," Tera told him. "I was the one who asked Sergeant Paul to station you here."

He glanced down at her badge of office, recognized it, and nodded.

"All right, Magistrate. What about him, though?" He jerked a thumb towards Janyn. The hunter glared hard at him.

"Just...don't."

The man's hand dropped, and Janyn followed Tera into the house.

"There were no signs of forced entry on that door," he remarked.

"No, and the windows are of typical pattern, tall and narrow so they can be left open to cool the house."

"It raises questions. We'll have to check the shop door, too, but it is a point."

"I'll need to verify certain details with Sergeant Paul. There's the Tyrell murder to consider, as well. Were they by the same hand, or is it a coincidence?"

"They were part of the same business chain and often dealt with one another, according to my client. I'm betting that they're connected."

Tera nodded. The gesture looked strange, even a bit grotesque due to the extraordinary thinness of her neck.

"If we'd had a chance to examine Tyrell's body, we would know. The method of murder was so distinct that it would be nearly conclusive. Deacon did tell me that the wounds _looked_ similar, but he didn't make a special examination; his job was just to embalm the body and see to the burial."

Prentiss's home, Janyn notes, was comfortably although simply furnished. He'd clearly done well and could afford quality items, but had avoided ostentation. The carpets and hangings were of solid colors with more vivid edgings for some contrast, the chairs and tables solid but without ornamentation. There was nothing of the fancy or the artistic, not even a spray of flowers in a vase or a small sculpture or painting. Combined with the lack of family, it suggested a picture of a man who had been all business, with nothing left for frivolity, amusement, perhaps not even love. A bookcase bore this out; half of the titles were related to his work, from practical guides in money management to atlases and maps of trade routes. Most of the others were also non-fiction: history, political theory, and basic science dominated.

It was a little sad, the hunter thought.

"I still think I should have tested the blood sample before we came here," Tera complained.

"You could have."

"Yes, but then you'd have gone through this scene before me."

"Don't you trust me?"

"Lord Zio teaches that we must always be willing to extend trust, but always be prepared to deny it."

"That sounds a little contradictory."

Tera shook her head.

"Not really. We want to do good and help other people, but the truth is that many people choose evil, in large or merely in petty ways. Denying that is denying reality. You _seem_ trustworthy, Janyn, but you _might_ be willing to conceal evidence that points towards Brent's guilt, either from a genuine belief in his innocence or because you were paid to hide that he was not. Or else, you might accidentally destroy evidence, brush away dust, walk on footprints, something like that."

Most of the time, if someone--particularly someone with legal authority--made those kind of insinuations Janyn would have been quick to take offense. Strangely enough, this time he did not. He supposed it was the matter-of-fact way in which she said it, as if it really didn't have anything to do with the two of them at all.

"So you decided to come with me just in case I was untrustworthy or incompetent?" he asked, bemused.

"Yes. Oh!" Her eyes widened, and she covered the surprised O of her mouth with her fingers. "I'm so sorry, Janyn. That must have sounded horribly insulting. I didn't even think--"

"It's all right. It's nothing that anyone else wouldn't have thought. The only difference is that you actually went and said it." He smiled. "It's kind of refreshing."

"Well, thank you for not being offended."

"Not at all. Now, let's see if we can find some evidence, if the village guards didn't go and destroy it all by now."

They looked through the rooms. Very little seemed to be out of place; there were certainly no signs of violence. The bed was neatly made and hadn't been slept in.

"Sergeant Paul told me that the body was found in an office," Tera said.

They found it at the end of a short hall, next to a barred door that led into the store's back room.

"No one got through that."

"They could have come in this way, then barred it behind them and left by another way," Janyn offered.

"The guard found the front door locked, I think."

"We'd better check on keys, then. If one is missing..."

Tera nodded, then opened the office door.

It looked to be fairly typical of its type. Shelves with boxed ledgers lined one wall, and a wooden writing desk was between two windows. These and the chair were the only furnishings; the floor was bare stone. A lamp with a glass chimney sat on the back left corner of the desk, positioned to throw the best light across the work of a right-handed man prone to tilting his paper. A ledger was still open on the desk, as was a small clay ink-pot.

The chair was laying on its back on the floor, and a used quill pen had dropped and left a small ink stain under its tip. These were the only signs of anything amiss that Janyn could see at first glance.

"I could wish this room was cluttered with bric-a-brac, so that we could tell how much of a struggle there might have been."

"Yes; there could have been a substantial fight here, or none at all," Tera agreed.

"The quill suggests that he was actually attacked in this room, not just left here to be found."

They began to inspect the room. Tera confirmed their impression that it was the murder site by finding several small bloodstains, possibly spattered when the cuts had been made as the cauterization would prevent further blood loss. It was no more than a few drops each. Perhaps, Janyn thought, they had dripped instead from the murderer's weapon? Janyn himself observed that there was a layer of dust on the windows, confirming that no one had entered by that direction, impossible as it might have seemed anyway.

The desk lamp was empty of oil; it had been left lit to use it all, then burnt down the wick besides until it had finally gone out from want of fuel. It suggested that the crime had occurred at night, while Prentiss was at work on his ledgers. A glance at the papers on his desk revealed nothing special; if there was a motive to be found there it was the kind that someone would have to tease out with hard work and an abacus.

About the method of murder, there was no indication whatsoever.

-X X X-

"So you're telling me that it's impossible, is that what you're saying?" Sergeant Paul sounded belligerent, almost angry. Janyn supposed that he had a point.

"No, no," Tera corrected. "That clearly isn't the case, because Mr. Prentiss is dead. What I said was that I could not see how it could have been done."

Janyn picked up a leg of roasted fowl and tore at it with his teeth. The several hours he and Tera had spent going over the dead man's house, checking for any sign at all of the killer's presence, had been hard, futile work. He'd breakfasted lightly before leaving for Morova, and lunch had been travel-rations on the road a couple of hours before he'd arrived for his meeting with Brent. He was hungry and ate with relish the good food served in the inn's common room.

"Once we're done here, I'll run the necessary tests on Mr. Prentiss's blood," Tera continued. "I picked up the supplies at the apothecary's on the way over." She patted her satchel.

"You said there were some drugs that couldn't be detected, though?" Janyn prompted.

"Yes; some dissipate quickly in the blood or simply leave no traces that anyone knows how to find, yet. Still, even negative results would mean something."

"Yeah; it would mean we still didn't know any more than we do now," groused the sergeant, spearing a forkful of vegetables. "I've got two men dead in three days. One was a trader, one a shop-owner, meaning that there were plenty of business links between them which could lead to a common motive. Both were killed at night in their own homes, sliced up without ever putting up enough of a fight to leave a mess. Okay, maybe they were drugged, but if so, how? The killer leaves no sign of forced entry that we could find, or you either. Hey, what about techniques?"

"We considered that. Techniques wouldn't last long enough to incapacitate a victim for the time it would take to...do the rest of it," Janyn answered.

Paul shook his head.

"Nah, I don't mean like that. I'm saying, what if he was killed by a technique? The killer could have just looked through the window and nailed his victims that way. Some people's Zan techniques act like that, cutting their enemies up with wind razors."

Janyn was just warming to the idea when Tera shot it down.

"It would explain a lot about the circumstances of the crime, Sergeant, but it won't work. The fact that the wounds were cauterized makes that impossible. That would be a combination of two separate elements, fire and air, while attack techniques use one element only."

She had a point. Hunters used techniques in battle regularly, making sure to develop whatever potential they had. It offered alternatives to ordinary weapons, as some monsters were just more vulnerable to cold, fire, lightning, or whatever.

"What about technique combinations?" Janyn wondered. "They're hard to pull off in the heat of battle, but for murder..."

He and Tera looked at each other thoughtfully, and in her eyes he could see the precise moment when she rejected the idea, only a second or two before Janyn himself did.

"It might explain the wounds, a variant on the conventional Fire Storm, although it would require two killers working together. There is no way it would have left the room so intact, however."

"What are you two talking about?" the sergeant interjected between bites of meat.

"Combination effects, created by the simultaneous use of two or more techniques or skills against a common target. The energies can merge and thereby create a new attack partaking of qualities drawn from its various sources. Wat and Zan together, for example, can create a Blizzard, a cyclone of frozen wind spraying ice crystals throughout an area."

"Do all you magistrates know this stuff?" he asked, a bit of respect showing in his voice.

Tera shook her head.

"I don't think so, though I'm sure some do. We all have our own skills and backgrounds, you see. I was an assistant professor at Motavia Academy for a time; I taught Patterns in Technique Studies to second-years."

Janyn would never have placed her as a professor, although recalling her methodical examination of the corpse and the crime scene he could see her as a student, a researcher.

"Blast it; it was a good idea while it lasted," Paul cursed while acknowledging her expertise.

"It would have cleared up a lot," Janyn agreed.

"It didn't fit the facts," Tera countered. "We must put it aside and move on." Building bridges of common interest clearly was not her goal; she'd obviously spoken without considering the sergeant's feelings. Possibly, she hadn't even stopped to consider that his feelings might even be involved.

Tera's personality, it seemed, was turning out to be as unique as her appearance. So often, the reverse was true.

"Well, one thing we know for sure is, it ties in with local trade," Paul declared. "Maybe Prentiss and Tyrell had some deal going on, and somebody resented being left out--or else wanted a piece of the action, maybe."

"By 'somebody,' you mean Dolan Brent." Janyn did not phrase it is as a question.

"He was Tyrell's biggest rival--really, his only rival. Morova wasn't big enough for more than the two of them. Maybe he figured it was only big enough for one. Or maybe Tyrell figured that way, and Brent fought back. Prentiss's store was the biggest in the village. About a third of the sales here went through him."

"A third of the sales of what?"

"Of everything, Magistrate. I figure if anyone bought anything around here, one out of three meseta went to him. He even sold to some other stores. Being bigger, he could negotiate better prices than they could with guys like Brent and Tyrell. Then he'd resell to the other stores for a profit, but at less than it would have cost for the others to buy directly from the traders."

"If you're right," Janyn noted, "there'll be evidence of it in the dead men's business records."

"We'll be going over those tomorrow. It'll be dog-work of the worst kind, but we'll do it. If Tyrell and Prentiss had a deal going to cut Brent out, then that'll pretty well tie the noose for Mr. Dolan Brent."


	4. Chapter 4

"You can't be serious!"

"Yes, I can."

"But it's ridiculous!"

Brent's face was flushed with agitation, and Janyn didn't blame him, not after he'd related to his client the substance of his dinner conversation with Tera and Paul.

"You said that there was no evidence of forced entry at Prentiss's house, right?"

"There was no evidence of anything that we could see."

"Well, then?" Brent spread his hands almost imploringly. "Doesn't that mean something? They can't prove I was there, not in any way!"

Janyn shrugged.

"You know Sergeant Paul better than I do," he said noncommitally, "but I'll tell you, I've seen people hung for a lot less than having a good motive and no alibi."

Brent didn't answer at once; he just stared off into the rock garden. The flickering lamps hanging at regular intervals were clear evidence that it was meant to be seen by night, that the play of shadow and light among rocks, paths, and the trunks of palm trees was carefully cultivated to achieve an effect. Janyn supposed that to some it would speak of nature's harmony, of the solitude of the desert, or something similar, but he didn't see it. His eyes kept flicking despite themselves towards the larger patches of shadow, attempting to pierce them and failing. Things lurked in shadow, creatures stealthily approaching their prey; the garden made the hairs on the back of Janyn's neck twitch with the sense of danger. The fact that he could spot nothing in any way threatening did not reassure him, but made him even more nervous. His hunter's instincts spoke of a danger, and failing to locate it only made him feel more exposed, more at risk.

"I know," Brent admitted at last. "I know that. It's why I hired you, after all. They have to hang someone, have to show that there's justice and righteousness, even if it's all an act. The killer will probably be there at the hanging, just to laugh about it and cheer them on!" He spun towards Janyn and grabbed the hunter's arm. "You have to stop them! You have to save me!"

"I'll do what I can," Janyn said. "I have to know what I'm up against, though."

Brent seemed to sense something of his meaning, because a sudden wariness came into his voice.

"What do you mean, Janyn?"

"I mean, is there anything to find? When the sergeant goes over those business records, is he going to find evidence of a deal between Tyrell and Prentiss?"

"How would I--"

"You've got to tell me the truth now, Brent. This is the sticking point. The evidence suggests two men were tortured to death; that takes a vicious cruelty, or else a powerful rage. There's no physical link to you, and no witnesses. If all the law can do is suspect you because you were a business rival, you'll be in the clear. But, if they can show the two victims were colluding on a partnership that would cost you thousands or tens of thousands of meseta, then that's another story. I need to know what I'm up against!"

Brent was trembling with barely-suppressed emotion; he was afraid and Janyn was just pushing at that fear. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, though. Fear could be a friend when one was facing real danger. So long as it didn't give way to panic, fear was a shield against stupid choices spawned by greed and desire. Janyn wanted Brent's attention firmly fixed on getting out of his current trouble.

"Damn, I need a drink," the trader muttered, "something to settle my nerves. Where is that kid? I told him to bring it out here." He shook his head as if to clear aside those thoughts. "You're right. Paul is right. There was a deal between Tyrell and Prentiss."

"What kind of deal?"

"Just about what you'd expect. Prentiss had signed a bargain whereby he'd purchase all his imported goods from Tyrell, in exchange for reduced prices. What Tyrell lost in profit margin he'd make up in volume, plus the effect on my business would have been savage."

"It would have put you out of work?"

"No," Brent said at once, then backpedaled. "Maybe. I can't be sure. Prentiss was the best, most reliable customer I had in Morova, and it would have hurt. Maybe it would have had long-term effects, or made some of my other customers doubt me."

So, in a best-case scenario Tyrell's operation would have gotten bigger and richer at Brent's expense. In a worst case, Brent wouldn't have a business left.

It was more than enough motive, especially considering the men's past rivalry.

"How did you find out?"

"Prentiss told me, four days ago. I could have killed him! I could have killed them _both_! I didn't, though. I'm not a murderer--and besides, there's no way I could have snuck into their homes and killed them. Do I _look_ like someone who could do that?"

It was a rhetorical question, but it raised a valid point. The truth was, Janyn didn't know what "someone who could do that" looked like. He knew dozens of other Guild hunters, every last one of them a trained killer, a person who earned their money by destroying monsters and hunting down criminals. Some were huge and strong, others lithe and swift. A few didn't look a thing like a fighter.

Those were usually the dangerous ones.

"Let's turn this around," he suggested. "Who else would suffer from this exclusive deal?"

"Well, the other shopkeepers, of course. Stability always hurts the little guy. It would mean that Prentiss would never have questions about his supplies; the others wouldn't get a leg up on him. Likewise, Prentiss would be guaranteed first pick of available goods."

"What about Ned Crain? You mentioned him before as being a professional crook, even involved in bandit attacks. That's not a man who'd think twice about killing if he felt he needed to."

"Yes, yes, you're right--and he _would_ have motive!" Brent seized upon the possibility. "An alliance between Tyrell and Prentiss might well have the money and other resources to beat Crain at his own game, stop his extortion. His profits would be sharply curtailed. He might have acted now to stop them from gaining an advantage over him."

"I wonder if he makes a more attractive suspect for Sergeant Paul, or less?"

There was a world of meaning in Janyn's question. Despite his emotional state, or perhaps because of it, Brent picked up on that at once.

"What are you trying to say?"

"I don't know Morova. How willing would the local law be to confront Crain?"

Brent smiled wryly.

"You might be surprised."

"It had to be asked."

"Paul wouldn't agree, but I'm not likely to care much about his feelings right now. What about the woman?"

"Magistrate Serin?"

Brent nodded.

"Whose side is she on?"

That was an interesting way of putting it, though he didn't particularly blame Brent for seeing it that way.

"I don't think she has a side, at least not in the way that you mean. She's from Kadary, so she doesn't have any local agenda to push, and as far as I can tell, finding the truth is all that matters to her. So long as we can't figure out how the crime was committed, she might end up being our best ally. She won't be satisfied naming a suspect on motive alone, hanging someone just because he had a good reason to kill."

"I wish _she_ had the final decision, then."

"You wish?"

"Local law trumps. Kadary Magistrates have the jurisdiction to investigate crime outside of Kadary but they do so as employees of the town, not independently. If Serin says no but Paul says yes, more likely than not the court will listen to Paul."

Did Trevor Paul really want quick answers? He actually seemed more thoughtful and thorough than Janyn had expected, gathering and analyzing evidence and leaving guards to protect a crime scene. Brent knew the sergeant better, but Brent was also clearly near the breaking point emotionally and his judgment wouldn't be as clear as it could be.

Janyn didn't say any of that, though. His client had troubles enough without being harassed by his own hunter.

"Tomorrow I'll start in on Crain," was what he said. "He won't admit anything, unless he's considerably dumber than you make him sound, but with luck I can provoke something. Evidence is what we need, and even if we can't prove he's guilty, he might start _acting_ guilty. That could win you some breathing space."

Presuming, Janyn thought, that his client wasn't actually the murderer. It was a possibility that he couldn't put away. He did have motive, and he'd concealed that motive from the hunter.

"It's stifling out here; let's go in," Brent said suddenly. Though the air was cool, Janyn understood perfectly. Perhaps his client, too, could feel the eyes in the shadows.

Brent spun and in the same motion took a hard step back towards the house. Unfortunately, the drinks he'd been asking for a moment ago had finally arrived, carried by a young boy around ten whom Janyn believed was the housekeeper's son. His steps were almost silent, and Brent crashed unsuspectingly into the boy, who'd had no time to react to his employer's sudden movement. The dark burgundy liquid, ink-black in the lantern light, splashed out over them both.

"Damn it!" Brent shouted. "This shirt's ruined! Why don't you watch where you're going, you stupid brat!" His right hand came up to about waist level and clenched into a trembling fist. Janyn was afraid he'd have to intervene, but his client mastered himself and let his hand fall without striking out.

"Take those glasses inside," Brent told the boy. "Get cleaned up, then clean this mess here." The boy scuttled off, relief suffusing his face. Janyn had read the fear there, fear of Brent's almost tangible anger which had, in turn, sprung from the trader's own panic.

"I'd better be going," Janyn told his client. The momentary loss of control was embarrassing, even shameful for the successful businessman, more so because both men knew what had spawned it. "I'll give you another report tomorrow on my progress."

"Yes, thank you. There's a gate at the far end of the garden. I could unlock it for you if it would be quicker."

Though it would be a faster way out and more convenient for reaching Janyn's inn, he declined the offer. Somehow, he did not want to walk through those shadows.


	5. Chapter 5

Rain.

Precipitation of any kind was rare on Motavia. Though much of the planet had a temperate climate, the aridity was nearly universal. Through some trick of the weather, the vast majority of the water that evaporated into the air from lakes and seas emptied back into those same bodies of water instead of blessing the land. A day of rain was a day of relief for the subterranean water sources that were always stressed to their limit. Bowls and jugs, pots and troughs were all set out to capture as much of the rain as they could.

Janyn awoke to the soft hiss of the rain on the sill of the open window and the floor just inside. He had overslept, he realized; the sensitive apparatus of his internal clock had been deceived by the near-darkness within the room. The clouds that filled the sky were a heavy, leaden block that created twilight out of morning.

He knew at once that he had _been_ awakened rather than merely waking on his own. The two felt differently, the slow rising into consciousness nothing like the sharp, bright shock of being jerked awake by external or internal stimuli. His gaze slashed the shadow-filled room, searching for threats but finding none.

Several short, quick raps on the door relieved his worry. Though his mouth and tongue felt thick and fuzzy, he called, "Coming!" all the while hoping it was a breakfast tray. He swished some water from the bedside carafe around in his mouth to help rinse out the taste of sleep, then tossed back the thin blanket and got out of bed.

"I hope," Janyn said as he reached for the door-lock, "there's frycakes and--oh."

It wasn't breakfast, or even an inn employee; it was Tera. A sudden flash of embarrassment shot through him as he realized he was facing the magistrate dressed for sleep in nothing but his trousers.

"Good...morning," she said, noticably without her usual careless aplomb.

"Sorry; I didn't expect you," he apologized--for no apparent reason, since he was decent and she hadn't announced herself.

"I thought you'd be awake," she said, faint accusation in her tone.

"I'll meet you in the common room in five minutes," he suggested.

"All right."

He was as good as his word. When he reached the common room she was standing there just inside the door, impatience suffusing her entire frame.

"Is there an emergency?" Janyn asked at once. "Has something new happened?"

"No," she said. "It's a new day, and we need to get back to work on the investigation."

"If there's nothing new, it can wait until I've had breakfast," he said. "I don't know when you got up, but I need fuel to start my day." Janyn strode past her and sat at a table, then signaled the waitress and ordered juice, sausage, frycakes, and fruit. A moment later, Tera sulkily sat down opposite him. She didn't speak for a couple of minutes, her scowl all the more fearsome on her death's-head face. Then, she began to relax.

"I'm sorry," Tera said.

"Thank you."

"Lord Zio tells me that my zeal is inspiring, but it often makes me expect more from people than I should, or indeed more than they ought to want to give."

"Zio," Janyn said. "That's the second time you've mentioned that name. Who is he?"

Tera's eyes widened in surprise.

"You've never heard of Zio, the Holy One?"

Janyn shook his head.

"I'm afraid not."

"Lord Zio is a holy prophet who has established his church in Kadary. The Way of his god is the path to truth in this world of chaos and unrighteousness!"

"You are a follower of this church, then?"

"Of course!" Her eyes burned with something that went beyond zealotry. "Lord Zio is the Truth and the Way. Only through his guidance can we hope to purge the corruption from the world."

"I suppose that appeals to you, as a magistrate?"

Tera shook her head sharply.

"No, you have reversed the events. Lord Zio's church grew to the extent that he became a member of Kadary's town council, and he felt that as such it was his obligation to guide his followers to a spirit of civic responsibility. He selected several of us to join various institutions; I was one of the ones named to become a magistrate. At first I was terrified of this new responsibility; I would have resigned had not Lord Zio put his trust in me. I could not let him down, so I worked hard, and soon I came to understand what he had seen all along, that this was not a task but an opportunity, a chance to act for justice in a tangible way and to demonstrate that the Holy One's Way is something to be lived daily, not merely recited and put aside!"

The waitress appeared then, delivering plates and cups while incidentally permitting Janyn the opportunity to digest Tera's affirmation of faith. Apparently now resigned to waiting, Tera ordered a cup of tea for herself; it came before Janyn had time for more than a couple of bites.

_So_, he thought, _she sees her job as a religious duty_. That explained her attitude towards his oversleeping and desire to eat. Actually, it explained more than that.

"Well, your prophet seems to take his civic duties seriously," Janyn said once the waitress was gone. "That's pretty rare in religion. Most of the time when a cult forms they either are so fixated on the spiritual that they ignore the world or they want to remake the world in their image and so don't respect it."

"Zio teaches that this world is essentially an illusion, a corrupt reflection of our own weaknesses. The righteous must purge what has been tainted, of course, but how much more valuable is it to convert the unbeliever by example?"

"And build the society of the righteous, eh?"

"Exactly!" Tera said earnestly. "The more pure we can render this world, the closer we come to the truth beyond."

"Clever," Janyn remarked, and meant it. New religions tended to get into trouble when they bumped up against entrenched power groups. Zio, it seemed, had instead chosen a strategy of supporting and infiltrating those power groups in Kadary. Well, perhaps not _infiltrating_, but certainly working from within, solving community problems rather than creating them.

Janyn dug into the sausage, finding it hot, tasty, and made with an unusual blend of spices. Perhaps a bit heavy on the verrish, he considered, but it still left a pleasant tingling on the lips like all good spicy food.

"I...forget sometimes that not everyone is as inspired as I am, though. People need rest and food, and I let my impatience carry me away. You don't see this case as," she added shyly, "the means of your soul's salvation."

Since Tera was both apologizing and offering details of her personal life to help explain her actions, Janyn stifled waspish comments like, "Whereas you consider my soul damned either way, so I'm not as motivated." Faith disturbed and unnerved him, probably because he had so little of it himself. Motavia and its society did not inspire him to believe in something better, some ideal. Most new religions, too, were nothing more than cults--a lot of flash and passion, but with no more lofty ideal than feeding its leader's cash-box, ego, or both.

"Well, it may not be a question of my soul," he said, "but it still could be the salvation of my client's life."

He ate and drank quickly while she sipped at her tea.

"Still, I don't think my oversleeping will cause too many problems for us. Men like Ned Crain rarely keep early hours, anyway."

"Ned Crain?"

"I'm going to question him this morning. Brent tells me he's got hooks in the local carters, using them to extort money from traders like Brent and Tyrell. He has a plausible motive, but there's another point. Whomever killed Prentiss did it without leaving any traces that we could find. That's not amateur work, and I'd guess the most likely person to be able to locate someone like that would be this town's biggest criminal boss."

Tera smiled, an expression that especially given her fine, white teeth emphasized her ghastly resemblance to a skull.

"It seems that I made the right decision to come here this morning."

"Oh?" He'd wondered at that.

"I thought you'd be more likely to reach a solution than the sergeant, so it made more sense that you and I combine our forces to see our way through this."

"You thought that I...?"

She nodded in affirmation.

"It's related to why the Kadary Magistrates exist, you see. Sergeant Paul appears to be an honest and sincere man, but he is what his title implies: the sergeant of the village guard."

"I'm not sure I follow you," Janyn admitted.

"He's not an investigator; he's a soldier, his job ultimately being to maintain order by fighting threats, from criminals to wandering monsters to marauding bandits. Even at that job, he doesn't have the training and expertise of a hunter. The Guild hunters are the elite, the court of last resort when a problem requires an expert fighter. Solving cases of secret murder isn't what he was trained to do, and so he is not prepared to cope with it, even though it is his duty to try."

"It's not what I'm trained to do, either."

"It's closer, though. You've already proven it to me, yesterday. His only advantage is local knowledge, which hasn't been useful to him so far. So, I thought we could combine our forces and work together."

Janyn smiled wryly.

"I've never been much for partners."

"Neither have I, but as Lord Zio says, one person can inspire the world to change, but it takes many to actually make the change."

It wasn't quite how he'd heard the sentiment expressed by others. Janyn supposed if he was going to start a new religion, he would make changes in philosophy from conventional wisdom also.

There wasn't any question of refusing her. She was the lawful authority, and a partnership meant a chance to work with that authority and influence it.

"Very well; you're quite right. Working together is probably best for both of us."


	6. Chapter 6

The rain continued to fall as they made their way across Morova to the Red Dog tavern. The sky was a uniform iron-gray except for patches where it shaded to near-black. It looked like it would be an all-day raid. Mud sucked at Janyn's boots; they'd be a mess to clean.

The tavern was dark inside; lamps had been lit but they weren't doing much good in fighting off the shadows. Even so, the Red Dog still looked tired and cheap, the furnishings the kind that could be replaced easily if smashed in a bar brawl. A thin, balding man with a drooping purple moustache polished cups behind the bar, and in a back corner three men sat at the only occupied table. It looked promising.

"Ned Crain?"

The man in the middle looked up with apparent disinterest.

"Who's asking?"

"Someone curious about your involvement in two recent murders."

"Ah, hell, you're that hunter Brent hired."

"You know me?"

"Word gets around, y'know? After all, you're here talking to me and we've never met."

"That's one for you, then."

Crain was an interesting study in contrasts. He looked to be around forty years old, his pale blue hair starting to thin a bit. He was clean-shaven, with sharp cheekbones but a weak chin, the kind people associated with a lack of character when they were too lazy to pay attention to a person's actual qualities. He had the broad shoulders, thick arms and torso, and powerful, calloused hands of someone who made his living by manual labor, but those hands--and more tellingly, the nails--were clean of dirt, and his tunic and trousers neat and of fine quality. Perhaps he'd started out as a carter himself before turning himself into a criminal boss. He carried no visible weapons.

The men on either side of Crain were, as Brent had called them, "roughnecks." They were big and strong, and they did carry weapons, but the hunter did not find them at all intimidating. If it came to a fight he could take them both, quickly and easily, before they could even get free of their seats. Their movements and attention gave away their inexperience to the hunter. They were petty bullies, not expert killers.

They were not the kind of men who could slip into a house at night, restrain the occupant--without the use of drugs, as Tera had verified, having run what tests she could the night before--and slowly, tortuously kill him without leaving a trace.

Janyn hadn't expected them to be any better than they were, though. You didn't use a scalpel as a shield.

"Now, the girl there, who looks like she'd shatter in a strong wind, she's the magistrate?" Crain asked.

"I am," Tera said sharply, apparently no more amused by personal insults than Janyn would be.

"How cozy. The law and Dolan Brent's hired weapon here to see me, hand in glove."

"Are you trying to imply something?"

"Imply? It _was_ Brent who told you about me, wasn't it? Who made all kinds of unsubstiantiated allegations about my business practices and suggested I could be a murderer?"

"So just what are your business practices?"

"I run an organization of local carters. It's a difficult business, dragging some trader's inventory across the desert from one town to another. Half the time there aren't any roads, so a carter has to be good at finding the way. There are bandits out there, desperate killers who would slit their mother's throat for three meseta. Then, of course, there are the biomonsters--you'd know plenty about that, hunter. Only, carters aren't hunters, trained by experts in fighting. They're just hard-working men and women who don't even own a stake in the goods they carry at the risk of their own lives."

It was a pretty speech and no doubt well-practiced, but Janyn did not find himself suddenly overcome with compassion for the plight of the carting profession.

"So where do you fit into the picture?"

"Why, I make sure that the carters I represent get paid more than a pittance. If they stayed apart, they'd be easy pickings for people like Brent or the late Victor Tyrell. They'd pay whatever they wanted, and if a carter protested there'd always be another ready to step in. I help them out of that trap. I've organized most of Morova's carters into a single group, so they can speak with one voice. That way, the traders can't play them against each other to beat down the price, and instead the carters can demand a fair wage." He gave Tera a pious look. "The hunter, of course, is paid to view me a certain way, but surely, Magistrate, you can see why I am so despised by the traders, why Brent would be glad to implicate me in murder?"

"Yet you confirm that there was a rivalry between you and the dead men?" Tera responded. Apparently she wasn't falling for Crain's blather either, for which Janyn was glad.

"I wouldn't call it a rivalry, per se. _They_ resented _me_ and the work my organization is doing."

"You've said some rather unpleasant things about the traders already."

"Oh, I was certainly _displeased_ with their attempts to control the carters and underpay them, but I would hardly want them dead because of something like that. That's the reason my organization was formed, to address those concerns. Besides, without the traders, the carters don't have anything to cart. We'd just be cutting our throats."

"Were you a carter yourself?" Tera asked.

"Damn right." Crain flexed a powerful hand. "Apprenticed at fourteen and then seventeen years at it. So you see, I know what they face at home and in the wild."

"Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with a group of people looking out for their own interests at the bargaining table," Janyn allowed, pausing just long enough for a smug look to creep into place on Crain's face before continuing, "On the other hand, when you start talking about theft, extortion, assault, and murder, that's another story."

Crain's eyes sparkled with anger, but it did not spread.

"Those are nasty words to be throwing around, friend."

"It's a nasty business we're in."

"We?"

"Victor Tyrell and Ovan Prentiss had struck up a business deal together."

"Oh?"

"Think of it as a local consortium. Salesman and supplier together, combining their economic forces. I may not be much of a number-cruncher, but that doesn't sound like it would be good for you. They could hire carters in Kadary--or hire guards to protect shipments using locals that didn't knuckle under to you. Powerful men don't like being blackmailed, Crain. They'd have happily spent two meseta to save paying you one as a point of pride, and working together they'd have had the meseta to spend. If those two had lived, you'd have to go back to a real job instead of soaking up membership fees from carters and bribes from merchants and traders."

The two roughnecks started to get up, sparked as much by Janyn's sneering tone as by what he'd said. Janyn was ready to counter the first strike when Crain cut the impending brawl off short.

"Easy does it now, boys," he drawled lazily. "Wouldn't want to give the esteemed representative of the law the wrong impression. Don't want to go acting like a cheap thug just because Brent's hired lackey calls you one."

The drawl and the gentle mockery were designed, in a way, to put Janyn and Tera at ease, to present Crain as the reasonable businessman, faintly amused at his rival's absurd attempts to incriminate him. It was a pose that fooled no one, not even himself. Black hatred was in his eyes, the kind of smoldering anger that gnawed at a man's guts until he was ready to kill, or do worse than kill.

Crain's words said one thing, but his eyes said something else: that he was the kind of man who could order a rival tortured to death.

"You can't deny that it's true, though," Tera said, picking up the thread of the interview. "You had very good reason to want Tyrell and Prentiss dead."

This time the two goons made no move. Tera was the law, and men like that didn't attack the law without specific orders to do so.

"I didn't kill them. I was right here for most of both nights, with the bartender and plenty of customers to vouch for me. After I left here, well, the barmaid can vouch for me." Crain wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Tera looked from one of Crain's thugs to the other.

"There are such things as hired killers."

"Yes, there are." Crain, in turn, nodded in Janyn's direction. "Brent's got one now. Interesting, isn't it? And if what he says about Tyrell and Prentiss getting in bed together is true, then what do you think Brent might think about his biggest rival and his biggest buyer forging a pact like that?"

Janyn came to his decision intuitively, without thinking it over consciously. Tera was sincere, he felt, but an unknown quality especially given her religious zealotry, and Sergeant Paul...well, he was a small-town guard captain.

_A rope, creaking softly as a body twisted in the dry, desert wind._

"You mean, Crain, that my client might have come to someone like you?" he sneered. "Cheap garbage like these two are a dozen to the meseta, of course, but I'm sure you know some real men who could be trusted not to cut their own throats on their knives."

That did it. The two thugs had been on edge already, and Janyn's insults tipped them over. They leapt at him, or tried to. One never even got out of his seat before Janyn snapped his knuckles into his windpipe, leaving the thug choking for breath. The second man tried to bull-rush the hunter so Janyn merely swung him past and into the tavern wall.

"I'd press assault charges, only that would be adding insult to injury," he said. "I guess maybe you're in the clear after all, Crain, if this pathetic excuse for humanity is what you have to offer. Come on, Tera; let's go talk to someone who matters."

He spun on his heel and headed for the door, hoping that the magistrate would follow him. She did. What's more, she didn't even speak up until they were outside in the rain again.

"What was that for?" she asked. "Why did you deliberately provoke a fight?"

He turned and looked back at her, wondering whether or not to trust her. Could he? Janyn wasn't sure.

So he did.

"I'm wagering on the only sure thing in human behavior. Violent, prideful stupidity."

It was curious, watching the raindrops run down across the black moon tattoo on her face; some part of his brain kept expecting the water to wash it away and was constantly surprised when it did not. Strange, he thought, how the mind played tricks like that.

"Sergeant Paul seems better than the average run of small-town guards," he confessed, "but I don't trust him. I _can't_ trust him. And I've got a client to protect. If Paul goes off half-cocked and decides to hang someone without proof, I want to make sure he hangs someone who, even if they aren't necessarily the killer, at least deserves hanging."

"You're provoking Crain into a personal feud. Something that shows he's ruthless and violent, and that he responds to personal problems with bloodshed."

The rain drummed against his arms and shoulders.

"Exactly."

"That's dangerous--if you genuinely believe he could be responsible for the murders."

"I do. He's vicious and unprincipled enough. He talks a good game about the rights of workers and maybe there's even good points to be made along those lines, but it isn't what he's doing. He's got some intelligence, but no conscience at all. He's a cruel, unprincipled killer who'll do whatever he has to to get what he wants for himself, be it money, respect, or power."

"He didn't commit these crimes, though."

Janyn blinked.

"You're sure? Just like that?"

"He might have ordered them. He has the anger in him to do that, the hatred for his enemies and rivals. He didn't do it himself, though."

"Ah, okay. I agree with you. His control cracks too quickly, and the murder has extraordinary control over himself or herself. No one who commits a crime that...perfect, that precise, acts in the grip of emotion."

"Crain's not like that. His emotions spill over quickly and easily."

"So is Brent."

"I haven't met him yet."

"You should. You'd see what I mean at once. He's terrified of this situation, and it's making him angry, almost unstable."

She looked up at him, her expression enigmatic, her eyes the same shade as the twisting clouds above.

"Why is he terrified?" she asked softly.

The rain was cold on Janyn's face.

"Does he fear what you fear? The destruction of an innocent life at the hands of the law? Or does he fear a just punishment?"

He didn't have an answer for her.


	7. Chapter 7

Victor Tyrell's house was not so grand as Brent's, but the interior was furnished with the same tasteful elegance. Rain was pouring through an open window and soaking an elaborately patterned carpet; Janyn closed the shutters.

"I'm surprised the housekeeper didn't see to that," he said. "Tyrell's heir, whomever he or she ends up being, would certainly prefer the house kept in good condition." A decent job done on upkeep might merit a bonus, and a better chance of continued employment under the new owner. "I'd wager the dye is going to run."

"Hard to do that when she ain't here," said the guard who'd been stationed at Tyrell's house. He'd insisted on personally escorting Tera and Janyn inside, and kept a suspicious eye on the out-of-towners.

"Why not? Did the sergeant order the servants to leave to keep them from tampering with the scene?"

The guard shook his head.

"Nope. She left the day of the murder. Moved back in with her sister and won't set foot in the place." He gave a little chuckle, apparently finding something humorous in the situation, or else in his knowing something the expert outsiders had not.

Janyn glanced at Tera.

"That doesn't make sense. If she was guilty she'd have either fled town outright or stayed on, but not moved out."

"What was she afraid of?" the magistrate skipped a couple of steps and asked the key question. "I think we need to find out."

Janyn turned to the guard.

"What was the name of the housekeeper, and where does her sister live?"

"Her name's Saya Lake, and her sister Mira lives with her family on the south street, just past Corro's Leathergoods. But you can't be thinking she did it. She's just an old lady!"

"It's not what she _did_ we're interested in, but what she saw."

"Sergeant Paul already questioned her. She didn't know anything."

"Maybe so. But then again, maybe not."

Their examination of the rest of Tyrell's house wasn't as exacting as it could have been; both Janyn and Tera were eager to check out a possible witness instead of covering old ground that the sergeant's men had already gone over. Tyrell had been killed in his bedroom, his stained sheets making the tiny amount of spilled blood more obvious than it had been at Prentiss's, but beyond that there was again nothing: no signs of forced entry, the rumpling of the bedclothes the only sign of struggle. Perhaps he'd been asleep when the killer had arrived, making him all the easier to overcome and incapacitate. There was, however, no evidence of the method of entry or of how the crime had been carried out. It was possible that in their desire to finish up and leave, they had overlooked something, some minute trace, but Janyn doubted it. Everything was identical.

Everything except that Tyrell had had live-in servants and Prentiss's had only been day workers. Just maybe there was something more to be told.

The direction to "the south street" was easy enough to follow; like most villages Morova was built around a crossroads, with a single intersection and extensions in each cardinal direction. There were other buildings on the outskirts of town, such as Brent and Tyrell's homes, but the heart of the village was the crossroads. They found the house next to Corro's Leathergoods easily enough, and a slightly plump, gray-haired woman answered Janyn's knock.

"We'd like to speak to Saya Lake, please," he said.

"She don't want any visitors," the woman snapped. "Just go away."

"You're her sister?"

"And who else would I be? Lived here twenty-two years afore my husband died and seven since, haven't I?"

"Well, we represent the law and need to speak to Saya."

Mira squinted at them suspiciously.

"Sergeant's already talked to her, and besides, you're no guard and she ain't, neither."

Tera touched her medallion of office.

"No; I'm a Kadary Magistrate."

"And one of them crazy Zioites, too, by the look of you. Get on off; Saya doesn't need to be bothered. She just lost her job, on top of finding her employer dead."

The rain was starting to soak through Janyn's leathers and chill his skin; he could only imagine how Tera must feel in her ordinary cloth garments. Mira's face was tough and sere, that of a woman who'd lived a hard life in a hard world and who herself would be just as hard. Winning her over would be difficult, perhaps impossible. He dropped his hand to his sword-hilt.

"Do you want to arrest them, Tera, for assisting a killer to escape? I think people who deliberately try to hamper the law's investigation count as accessories under Kadary-area law, don't they?"

Mira's eyes widened in sudden fright, and Janyn tried not to think too closely about how he was bullying innocent people.

"Maybe Saya killed Tyrell and you're helping her," he went on regardless. Maybe she's not even here and you're only pretending, to give her a head start out of town."

"N-no, that's not true..."

"Talk to Magistrate Serin, not me. She's the one who'll decide to bring you in or not," Janyn snapped, hoping Tera would follow his lead, let him be the heavy, offering threats, and her be the one holding his leash.

As soon as the woman's eyes turned to her, Tera said, "I don't think that will be necessary, Janyn. I'm sure Saya Lake is home like her sister says." To Mira directly she added, "You understand, though, that these questions must be asked and answered. The righteous do not try to keep justice waiting on the threshold."

Her final statement sounded like a quotation, perhaps from Zio since Janyn did not recognize it. It was, however, particularly apt.

The old woman trembled a bit, and she seemed to have aged a decade in the course of the exchange.

"All right, come in. But you take it easy on her, you hear me! Saya isn't one of your suspects." She led Janyn and Tera inside, into a plain but neat living room. A fire burned in the hearth, dispelling a little of the chill in the room. Janyn stood with his back to the flames rather than drip on the furniture.

"I'll go and get Saya for you," Mira answered, then scurried into the back of the house.

"I feel sick," Janyn said quietly when she was gone.

"It was necessary."

"She was just trying to protect her sister from pain."

"That's just it," Tera said. "She cares about her sister--one person that she loves--more than she does about what's right. Her sister's comfort matters more than the lives of strangers in her mind. Overcoming that was and is necessary. You did what justice demanded."

Tera said it with passion, but also with the firm confidence of one stating a self-evident fact. To her, he supposed that's what it was; she had the zealot's absolute faith in her convictions.

Janyn found it more than a little frightening.

Mira returned a few moments later, escorting another woman with an unconscious mirror of a bodyguard's positioning.

"Magistrate Serin, this is my sister Saya. She's willing to speak with you."

"Sit down, Miss Lake," Tera prompted, indicating a chair with a gesture. She then dismissed Mira with a sharp, "Thank you. If we need to speak with you we shall let you know."

Mira opened her mouth as if to protest, then shut it again under the power of Tera's steady gaze. She glanced at where her sister sat fidgeting nervously, then over at Janyn, and finally stepped away, the defender routed. Perhaps because of his guilt, Janyn began gently with the housekeeper.

"Miss Lake, your sister may or may not have told you this, but Miss Serin, here, is a Kadary Magistrate and I am a hunter from the Guild in Aiedo. We've been asked to look into the murders of your former employer and of his business associate, Ovan Prentiss."

"P-Prentiss? Mr. Prentiss has been murdered?" Saya asked fearfully. She had the same broad features and thick-bodied build as her sister, but on her it looked very different. She was at least five or ten years younger and had none of Mira's toughness, so what looked hard and powerful on one sister just seemed soft and weak on this one. Janyn wondered whether it was a natural difference in character or a reaction to recent events.

"Yes, in the same manner as Tyrell."

"I didn't know." No surprise; even the small-town grapevine couldn't provide information to someone who was hiding out and not receiving visitors. Even if Mira had found out, she probably wouldn't have told her sister for fear of upsetting her more.

"We think that you can help us."

"But I don't know anything! All I did was find the body in the morning and call the guard!"

"That isn't true," Tera said. "Sergeant Paul believed you. He didn't think you'd lie to him. We know differently."

"You can't mean that! It isn't right."

"Why did you leave Tyrell's house?"

"I--I was scared!"

"Of what?"

"My employer had just been murdered!"

Janyn shook his head.

"We didn't believe that before," he told her, "and now that we've met you and your sister, we believe it even less."

"Some people do get squeamish when confronted with death," Tera agreed, "but for the most part it is a daily reality here on Motavia. Death from age, death from disease, death by accident, by monster, from human hatreds or greed, or simply from overwork from trying to survive. You know it all too well to fear it when it has passed you by. A hard-working village woman would know that, just as you'd know there was room, board, and coin waiting for you if you stayed on as caretaker for Tyrell's heirs, yet you did not stay."

"I--"

"You aren't a stupid woman, Saya," Janyn said. "If you were, Tyrell wouldn't have kept you on. I know men of his type better than that. Your employer's death would be a misfortune, truly, but hardly a source of superstitious fear. You'd know he'd have been slain by one with a personal hate and no reason to harm you after the fact."

He let it hang for a moment and once again Tera picked up on his cue.

"Unless, of course, the story you told was a lie. Despite what you told the sergeant, you _did_ see something, or you _do_ know something. Otherwise, you simply wouldn't be here in hiding--but you are here, and you are afraid."

"It isn't the fact of death that you fear, but the threat of it," concluded Janyn.

"N-no, no, I don't know anything. I told the guard what I'd seen."

"You are lying to us," Tera said harshly. "You are sitting there and lying to our faces, when we _know_ you are lying. You are deliberately assisting a murderer to escape justice. You are laughing at everything that is right and decent!" She was about trembling with her anger, with a righteous fury at Saya's protests.

"I'm...I'm not! Why are you _saying_ these things?" Saya screamed, and began to weep. Janyn was surprised by her sudden breakdown and realized that she must have been under a much greater strain than he'd thought.

"What are you doing to her?" Mira cried, rushing into the room, coming to her sister's side and putting a supportive arm around the weeping woman's shoulders while glaring defiantly at Tera and Janyn. Clearly she had not been routed but only forced into temporary compliance.

"I am putting her under arrest as an accessory after the fact to multiple murder."

"You can't do that!"

"Yes, I can, and I am. Janyn?"

It surprised him, how furious the magistrate was and yet how controlled she kept her voice. _And I took the "hard" role for myself, earlier!_ he thought.

"I told you before," he said with a sigh. "I told you what would happen." This was so _stupid!_ Blind fear destroying judgment, making the housekeeper act not just against abstract concepts of right and wrong but also her own interests. Clearly, though, applying fear of the law to counter her fear of the killer wasn't getting it done, and Janyn knew all too well that logic and reason never overcame irrational emotions.

_Wait a minute_.

"The worst of it is, what you're doing doesn't even make sense. If we figured out that you know something, don't you think the murderer knows it, too?"

Janyn's gut twisted with the thought of what he was about to do, but he pressed on.

"This killer isn't some oaf, some thug that can't think from one step to the next. He's clever, and sly, and cruel. Think of what he did to Tyrell and to Prentiss. He obviously stayed in town after killing Tyrell so he could kill Prentiss, so he could see what we saw: that you ran away and hid. That you were scared. There's only one thing to be scared of in that house, Saya, and that's the killer."

Janyn paused, just for the barest moment to gather himself to go on, but Tera stepped in at once. Did she realize what it was costing him?

"Have you told Mira what you saw, yet?" she asked. "Or are you just using her as a shield? When the killer comes for you and she dies protecting you, will you weep for her? Or will you just cower in the corner and be glad to have lived for a few seconds longer?"

An anguished wail burst from Saya, and she looked over at her sister. It was obvious she hadn't thought that far ahead--hadn't _allowed_ herself to think that far ahead. Her fear had demanded that she hide in the only place she felt safe, but it was a purely emotional reaction. She hadn't rationally considered the possible consequences of her actions. She was too scared to face them.

Now she didn't have a choice.

"There's only one way out," Janyn said, rushing in greedily. At least let him be the one to offer hope. "Talk to us. Tell us all you know. If you die now, the killer's secrets die with you. If you talk freely, then there's nothing to be gained from your death. The secret will still be out. It's the only thing you can do that could give the murderer a reason to leave you alone, and it may help us actually catch the killer. Once he's been brought to justice, you'll be completely safe."

"Or, I arrest you as an accessory and all of Morova will know that you have something to say but you aren't talking. Then even the most foolish murderer would see that you have to be killed."

"Stop it!" Mira shouted. "How can you call yourself the law? How can you do this to her?"

Saya looked, blank-eyed, from her sister to Janyn to Tera and back again. Tears were streaming down her face, but the only sounds she made were little whimpers.

"Fine," Tera snapped. "Bring her along, Janyn; we'll take her to the guardhouse."

"You can't do that!" Mira all but exploded.

"Bring her, too," Tera's voice held enough anger and disgust to slash at the senses like an attack.

"The shadows..." Saya whimpered. "The shadows..."

"What was that?" Janyn said. "What about the shadows?"

But she said no more, only rocked gently forward and back.


	8. Chapter 8

Even after the two sisters had been locked up in the guardhouse, Tera was still all but trembling with anger.

"It should have worked," Janyn said quietly. "Hedge her round with her own fears, using the truth as a weapon, then offer her hope, the easy out. She should have talked and been relieved to do it."

"She should have, but she didn't."

"She just broke down."

They'd put the two women in the same cell. Saya had been clinging to her sister and sobbing when they left; it would have taken physical violence to separate her from Mira at that point.

"I don't understand people like that!" Tera exclaimed. "How can anyone be so deranged by fear that they do the exact opposite of what would protect them from that fear? And Mira! I _despise_ those of her sort!"

Janyn was shocked by her vehemence.

"Tera, she just wanted to protect her sister." _Unlike me, _guilt lashed him, _who pushed at a poor, weak woman's vulnerability until she had a breakdown._

"She's no different than Ned Crain, no different at all! 'Put aside desire and walk the righteous path!' Zio says. Crain desires money, and perhaps the pleasure of wielding power, so he steals and extorts. Mira desires that her sister be left alone, so she thwarts the law and helps a murderer."

"She did it out of love."

"If I cut your throat, does it matter to you if I did it for love, hate, or greed? Sins are not excused by good intentions! Besides that, if her love was pure instead of selfish, she'd have wanted Saya to do the right thing. Saya was weak of spirit and I cannot blame her for that any more than I can blame a weak man for not being able to lift a heavy rock, but Mira is not weak and she chose to do evil. She should have helped us. With her aid, Saya could have been coaxed to talk gently, eased along to see the truth and face her fears, but instead Mira chose to fight us, to create a conflict, force us to be hard and demanding, and increase the stress on her sister every time she spoke."

It was a hard philosophy, Janyn thought, but...wasn't there some truth to it? He and Tera _were_ trying to catch a vicious and brutal murderer. They _had_ to try to gather all evidence possible, not just to exact justice, but to save innocent lives in the future, lives like his own client's.

_A swollen, blackened tongue protruding from slack lips, a body twisting at the end of a rope._

Mira had instead chosen protecting her sister over the cost to those innocents. Worse yet, she'd used bad judgment in choosing _how_ to protect, giving Saya what she wanted--no, what Saya's _fear_ wanted--instead of what she needed.

And yet, was it right to _blame_ Mira for that? Wasn't that holding her to an unreasonable standard? Who would be so coldly rational in the face of a loved one's misery? No one would, and after a moment Janyn realized that Tera didn't really expect _reason_ to win out. It was _faith_, the same kind of passionate belief she herself had in Zio's "righteous" path, that could overcome strong, personal emotions, that could make someone act in accord with a greater principle.

The problem was, those with faith always expected everyone else to have it, too, or at least used it as a yardstick to measure by. Most people, though, didn't have that kind of dedication to the abstract that would let them rise above the personal.

And sometimes, people put their faith in the wrong things.

"Are you seriously going to charge Mira? Have her tried as an accessory to these murders?"

"Yes!" Tera snapped, then paused. She looked uncertain, an emotion that didn't look natural on her. "Maybe," she amended. "Maybe I'm letting my feelings cloud my judgment?"

"Just because she offends you doesn't necessarily mean she's offended justice, you mean?"

Her head bobbed up and down on her skinny neck.

"I think we should wait and see," she decided. "We will solve this case. When we do, we'll know if Saya's testimony would have helped us do it any faster. If it didn't matter, then I'll release them. If it turns out that the information would have saved people's lives, then Mira will have to pay for that." She sighed deeply. "She'll pay for it anyway. We carry our sins with us eternally."

"Grim philosophy."

"A true one, though. The world still bears the weight of million-year-old sins written in the heavens."

Janyn had a hard time finding an argument against this piece of Zioite belief, and regretted the lack.

"I think that's enough philosophy for now. We need to find the one behind a few more recent sins."

"Yes," Tera agreed.

There were, however, no easy answers. The rest of the day spent in further investigation yielded nothing but dust in the wind, leaving Janyn with nothing but vague, frustrated hopes. The sky had already turned to star-strewn velvet when he decided to speak to Dolan Brent once more. The links were there, Tyrell to Prentiss to Brent, even if they didn't properly close. Crain, too, was tied in, but was his belligerence born of guilty knowledge or just the viciousness and arrogance that so often personified his type of career criminal?

It wasn't that he thought Brent was hiding something, not really. The man was staring at murder charges. Trevor Paul might have been a cut above the local village guard, and Tera was clearly intelligent, but they were officers of the law. The people's thirst for justice was ravenous; the villagers would not accept living in fear. They would demand to be set free of those fears; someone would have to dangle from the end of a rope to keep them safe, not from a killer, but from their own dread. He'd felt the signs over dinner, the hushed voices of other diners in the common room--or the other extreme, the too-eager smiles and laughter whose brittle facade of happiness would crack at any sudden noise or strangely cast shadows.

If he knew something--if he knew _anything_--Brent would talk, to keep his own neck from filling that noose. Point the inevitable hand of the law somewhere else, anywhere else! That would be the only rational thing to do.

_Only, fear isn't rational_, Janyn admitted glumly. Hadn't they just proved that when they'd locked up Saya and Mira? If Brent really did have guilty secrets that pointed to the real killer, might he be too afraid to reveal them? Or, as seemed likely, if the secrets related to criminal business dealings, too greedy? Did he hope to still profit from them?

Or, perhaps Brent had no secrets at all. Perhaps he had told all he knew, and there was no more to say. No matter how deeply one dug, a dry well would yield no water.

_I sound like Tera_, he thought as he knocked on the door. Proverbs and pithy metaphors were not his style. He knew he shouldn't have taken this job. It was stirring up all the wrong feelings inside him, turning his thoughts topsy-turvy. He needed a clear head, a clear heart. He longed for the simple purity of stalking biomonsters in the wild.

The door was locked, and only after Janyn identified himself did the housekeeper draw back the bolts.

"Do you usually lock up at night?" he asked her.

She shook her head.

"No; only since...since Mr. Prentiss was killed. Mr. Brent's orders."

Janyn nodded.

"It was probably a good idea. At the least, it can't hurt." It probably wouldn't help, either, to judge by the first two crimes, but there was no reason to tell her that. He was glad Tera wasn't with him, because she would likely have spoken the plain truth, without so much as thinking about it. Even on the strength of two days' acquaintance, Janyn was confident the idea of watching one's words to avoid causing needless fear had never crossed Tera Serin's mind.

"I need to speak with Mr. Brent." Back to business. "Is he in?"

"Yes, sir. I'll let him know you're here."

Brent was in the rock garden again, the flickering lamplight casting his face in a bronze glow. It gave Janyn a strong sense of deja vu; it almost seemed to him as if the events of the night before were repeating themselves. The same place, the same people, the same conversation.

It also struck him that despite Brent's apparent concern for his safety--the locked door--he apparently felt no need to stay behind that barricade. It was odd, unless locking the door was a pose of some kind. The obvious truth was that the guilty need not fear their own knives, but it might be something innocuous as well, such as a gesture to a worried servant with a child in the house.

Thinking of the boy called Janyn's attention to one difference he could see. This time, Brent already had his drink in hand, so there would be no repeat of the scene with the boy's spillage. Remembering the fury Brent had shown then, Janyn had to repress a shudder. He wondered if his client's temper was entirely due to the pressures Brent was under, or if it was just naturally vile.

Then he saw something else, behind Brent in the shadows. A glint, a spark of light struck by a flickering flame on steel.

"Ah, Mr. Carlyle, did--"

"_Down_!" Janyn shouted, lunging for him at the same time. Janyn's extended arm got there first, hand fisting in his shirtfront, pulling as the glint took flight and an arrow from a bow-gun whisked past their shoulders. He heard the dull sound of its point striking off the house even as they crashed to the ground, the impact spraying sand and dislodging ornamental rocks. There was a grunt of pain and surprise from Brent, but Janyn had no time to explain if he hadn't figured it out on his own; the would-be killer might be readying another bolt.

Worse, the assassin might be escaping with the first real clue, the first hard evidence in this case.

The hunter's feet scrabbled for purchase in the soft sand and he pushed himself up, charging in the direction where he'd seen the glint. The circle of lamplight made it almost impossible to see outside its radius, and Janyn nearly stumbled over an ill-placed rock as he crashed through the border of Brent's garden, but once he, too was in shadow his eyes began to adapt at once and he could just make out a patch, a single spot of complete blackness through which starlight did not pass. It was manlike in size, moving rapidly away, but Janyn put on a burst of speed and soon narrowed the gap. He was a big, solidly-built man with a frame one rarely associates with speed, but as a hunter he was superbly conditioned, used to maintaining hard physical activity for a long time. Steadily, he closed the gap on his quarry.

Whether it was the pounding footsteps or simply that certain people seem to develop in long years of running away, the assassin served to realize that flight would be futile and spun back towards Janyn. The darkness made it difficult to see, but at the last moment Janyn realized that his quarry had pulled a blade from a wrist sheath while turning, making his movement into the start of a sweeping attack. Janyn doubted that it would penetrate his mail, but nonetheless he pulled back reflexively.

The assassin followed up at once, lunging and slashing. He was big, as tall as Janyn, but with more bulk, possibly more strength. What he didn't have was more skill. The cuts were forceful, but wild. Janyn swept his leg up, cracking his boot against the assassin's forward knee. Overbalanced, the man fell forward as the knee gave way. Janyn caught his weight, left hand on the man's wrist, wrenching, twisting the knife free. The hunter's right hand descended once, twice, again in powerful clubbing blows that left the would-be killer stretched out unconscious on the sand.

Was it over, then? That easily?

No, Janyn decided, binding the assassin's wrists, it wasn't anywhere near over.


	9. Chapter 9

"You got him, then!" Brent exclaimed when Janyn dragged the unconscious man into the house.

"That was good work," Tera acknowledged. Janyn blinked in surprise when he saw the magistrate.

"When you chased off after him," Brent said, "I sent Luka to the inn to fetch her. I figured we'd want the law on hand at once when you caught the murderer."

Janyn shook his head.

"This isn't the murderer."

"What?" Brent exploded. "But he tried to kill me!"

"That's how I know."

"Are you accusing me of the killings? I'm your client, damn it!" Brent roared. "I'm paying you to find the murderer, not shove my neck in a noose! That law would do that job for free!"

"Just be quiet and wait," Tera snapped. Brent had taken several steps towards Janyn, but stopped at the magistrate's upraised hand. "Janyn, explain what you mean."

The hunter nodded.

"I'm not accusing you of anything, Brent. I'm just saying that the method of attack used tells me that this man didn't commit the crimes."

"This is your judgment as a hunter, as an expert fighter?" Tera verified.

"Yes."

Janyn hoisted the man off the ground and dumped him into a straight-backed chair.

"Explain."

It might have been polite of her to ask, but Janyn supposed she didn't have to. At this point Tera was a law officer requesting a witness's testimony, regardless of the fact that they were working together on the case. From what he'd seen of her character, that wouldn't matter, not when she was fulfilling her duty.

"He's a lousy knife-fighter, first off. Not just 'worse than me,' but actually bad, probably never trained and learned what he's managed to learn by surviving what brawls he's been in. That's suggestive but doesn't clinch it, because you can be a bad fighter but good at stealthy murder, and it doesn't take an Alys Brangwin to cut an incapacitated victim."

The would-be assassin groaned dully; he was slowly coming around.

"More important was his attempt to kill Brent," Janyn continued. "He crept up in the dark and intended to shoot Brent with an arrow. In the lamplit area, Brent was a perfect target, while being outside it, this man was in cover. It was a good plan, but he botched it."

"How?"

"The arrowhead was highly polished and reflected the light. Using a dusted weapon would be basic, anything to cut down on the reflective quality of the blade."

"Maybe he didn't think of it," Brent offered, more as a matter of form than of real belief. It was Tera who contradicted him.

"Undoubtedly," she agreed. "Janyn's point is that someone who is such an expert at stealth as to carry out the Tyrell and Prentiss murders without leaving a trace _would_ have thought of it." She glanced at the hunter. "Correct?"

"Exactly. Anyone who is _that_ good, it becomes second nature. This man is no assassin. Besides, the one who killed Tyrell and Prentiss wouldn't kill with any weapon as clean as a bow-gun."

"It isn't personal enough," Tera agreed. The phrase surprised Janyn, but then he started to see what she meant. The kind of emotion, be it hate, rage, fear, or sadism, that drove a person to vicious torture wouldn't be satisfied with striking a victim down at range.

"H-hey!" the captive man spoke for the first time. "You don't think I killed Tyrell and Prentiss, do you?" His voice was thick and a little slurred, but there was fear in it.

"No, we don't," Tera said.

"'Cause I didn't! I'm no killer!"

"Only by luck," Janyn told him. "You were caught in the act of attempted murder. There's a price to be paid for that, I'm sure."

"Of course," said Tera.

"You are going to tell us everything about it. Why did you want to kill Brent?"

"We know that already," Tera corrected. "Ned Crain sent him."

Janyn looked at the prisoner, taking a good look under good light for the first time, and realized what she'd seen right off.

"Yes, of course. You're one of the men from the Red Dog, one of Crain's lackeys. The last time we met I threw you into a wall."

"Smug bastard."

"You will speak respectfully!" Tera snapped. "You are a prisoner in custody; there is no question of your guilt. Your only chance for leniency is to tell us everything you know. Why did Crain want you to kill Mr. Brent?"

"I'm telling you nothing."

"Of course you will."

"I'll make him talk," Brent growled. "That coward Crain didn't even have the guts to come in person. Just give me a couple of minutes."

"That won't be necessary," Tera said. "He will tell me whatever he knows."

For some reason Janyn was reminded of when he'd first met Tera and the way she'd been examining Prentiss's corpse without the slightest sign that she was conscious of anything besides its physical characteristics.

It seemed, from the sudden look in the captured thug's eyes, that his thoughts were running along similar lines despite the fact that he hadn't been there. Or maybe it had finally sunk in that, in a town where there was no prison to incarcerate criminals, the punishment facing him might be very little better than if his arrow had hit its target. For whatever reason, he began to talk.

"All right, yeah, Crain sent me. He said Brent, there, needed to be taught a lesson for siccing the hunter on him."

That was interesting, thought Janyn. His attempts to provoke Crain had evidently worked, but the explosion of violence hadn't been directed at him. Instead, Crain had ignored the lackey and gone after the employer. Was it because of his antagonism with Brent? Or was Crain merely the kind who didn't see an employee as being capable of independent action? Not that it mattered, but Janyn was curious as to how he'd gone wrong.

"Killing a man is quite a lesson."

"Hell, he'd never do it again," said the thug with a toothy grin.

"That _scum_!" Brent exploded. "That bloody, back-stabbing trash! I'll--"

Janyn dropped a hand on his employer's shoulder.

"You'll go back to bed and keep your doors locked and windows shuttered," he said, squeezing a bit as a warning for Brent to hold his tongue. "We'll take this thug to the guardhouse, and I'll ask for a guard to be posted here in case Crain has a backup plan."

"You won't have to ask," said Tera. "I'll order it. At least we can stop that crime. After that, I intend to have a long talk with Mr. Crain."

"Mind if I help?"

"I assumed you would."

-X X X-

The prisoner's name turned out to be Jonn Parl; the night-watch at the guardhouse recognized him at once. He was duly signed in and locked up in the cell next to Saya and Mira. Janyn looked in on the two women; both were asleep, but one's was disturbed by whimpers and cries as she was caught in the throes of a nightmare.

It made no sense to him, why anyone wouldn't immediately seize the first chance to get free of that kind of fear, but what could he do? Not everyone lived up to the same standards. Indeed, not everyone could even agree on what the standards were.

Once they were on their way to the Red Dog, Tera spoke for the first time about the arrest, but not in the way he expected.

"I appreciate your loyalty to the truth," she told him.

"Oh?"

"You were the only witness to the attack on Brent and you fought Parl one-on-one, alone. You held the evidence that he was not the one we seek, but you spoke up. I've known others who would not."

"I saw Prentiss's body," Janyn said. "Do you think I could protect someone who did that?"

"Some would. This man we just arrested was going to commit a murder because Ned Crain paid him. Dolan Brent is no doubt paying you considerably more. You stopped him from talking, after all, to protect him."

It was true; Janyn had wanted Brent to stop before he started issuing threats against Crain in a fit of anger, justifiable as the anger might be.

"People don't always think when they're angry, and he's in a tight corner. Fear of murder charges, and now fear of being murdered by someone completely different. I wouldn't be calm and rational, either."

"I understand that. We have a responsibility to prevent trouble from occurring."

"Is that another part of Zio's creed?"

"Of course, though it is even more basic than that. If we can prevent someone from going wrong now, there will be no need to deal with the consequences later. But, we have an equally strong duty not to let personal loyalties interfere with our greater dedication to what is right. You did not keep quiet, even though the truth exonerated Crain from ordering Tyrell and Prentiss's deaths."

Janyn blinked, surprised.

"Exonerated Crain? I know that it cleared Parl, but how do you see Crain as necessarily innocent?"

Tera stopped and looked at him, wide-eyed.

"If Crain sent the killer of Tyrell and Prentiss, or was the murderer himself, wouldn't he do the same for Brent? Why send a man like Jonn Parl when there is someone far more skilled to do the job?"

"There could be reasons. Perhaps he didn't want to be linked to those murders, or he wants us to think Brent was responsible."

She shook her head with sharp, decisive movements.

"No; I considered that, but it makes no sense. If you have a scalpel, you don't try to cut with a club. Besides which, murder is murder. It makes no difference to Crain if he hangs for killing Tyrell and Prentiss or for killing Brent. There is no profit in having one murder become his alibi for another."

She was right. As much as Janyn wanted to deny it, she was right.

It made no sense at all for Crain to use Parl as his enforcer against Brent if he had a more skilled expert on hand, not unless he was certain not to be caught.

Perhaps that was it? Perhaps Crain just had the supreme arrogance to assume that the killing would succeed and there would be no way to trace it to him? The idea that someone successful in building up a criminal influence would be that foolish did not sound likely, but then again, this was Morova, not a large town like Aiedo or Kadary. A small fish could seem big if all the other fish were even smaller.

He couldn't really believe it, though. In his heart, Janyn was sure that Tera was correct; Crain was not the killer who entered without leaving a trace and killed with a red-hot blade.

"If you believe that," he said, "then why are you so set on arresting Crain now?"

"As I said, murder is murder. Do you think I would condone crimes just because they aren't the ones I am investigating? I want this side event finished with as quickly as possible so I can return to my real quarry, yes, but not by ignoring it. And there may be something to be gained, besides."

"You mean that Crain may not be so reluctant to tell what he knows, now?"

She nodded agreement.

"Yes. Before he had reason to be silent, to keep from revealing his own crimes. Now, confessing all he knows may help spare him the worst of his punishment."

Tera turned back towards the tavern and started off again.

"He'll probably fight back," Janyn said, "and he'll have help if he does."

"Probably," she agreed. "Why do you mention it?"

"I want to know if I can count on you in a fight."

"I'd be worthless as a magistrate if I couldn't defend myself against criminals."

"You don't carry any weapons."

"I am guarded and kept safe by Lord Zio's hand."

"I've never seen a prayer stop a sword," Janyn said.

"The arts of Zio's Chosen are considerably more than prayers!" she snapped.

"Techniques?"

"Those as well, but I speak of a similar but purer art, drawn not from the regimented laws of science but by calling upon one's faith in the Holy One."

Janyn thought he understood. Many hunters trained in using their will to augment their weaponskill with mystic power. Those were martial arts, not acts of faith, but they likely were the same kind of effect. So long as it worked, he really didn't care about the specifics. The important thing was that the frail Tera wouldn't have to defend herself in hand-to-hand combat, and that Janyn could worry primarily about his own safety and not act as a shield for her. It wouldn't be as good as fighting alongside a true partner, where the two could help and support one another, but it was better by far then having to do all of the fighting and simultaneously protect a noncombatant. No hunter enjoyed bodyguard jobs.

"All right, then. Let's go."


	10. Chapter 10

The night felt like a palpable presence to Janyn as he and Tera approached the Red Dog, a cloak of blackness that wrapped around him like Tera's mantle. The lights shining from the windows lit the tavern up brilliantly in comparison, unlike the nearby shops and houses which had only one or two lights burning if any. The day's rain had turned the hard-packed dirt road into mud that sucked at his boots; the combined effect of it and the heavy night air made it feel like Janyn had to overcome a tangible force to approach the tavern. Some superstitious corner of his mind wondered if it was a portent, while the more logical side of his intuition marked it as being because for the first time on this job he was about to enter a situation while anticipating violence, expecting it.

Perhaps even seeking it.

Yet even though Ned Crain was a boil on Morovan society needing to be lanced, Janyn still felt frustrated. As Tera had pointed out, this was a sideshow. It would prove nothing as regarded the murders he'd been hired to solve, even if it would remove his client's enemy.

"Do you have a plan?" he asked.

"We do not creep in like serpents," Tera stated. "We enter openly and boldly, and let the unrighteous declare themselves that they may be purged."

He was almost sorry he'd spoken.

They went inside. The bar was much more crowded than it had been during their earlier visit; several tables were occupied as were about half the stools at the bar. The bartender with the drooping purple moustache now had the assistance of two women in low-cut blouses and short skirts in delivering drinks, and there was a buzz of conversation. None of those things, though, made the place look any less dingy and depressing to the hunter. The customers were all rough-dressed men and women who had to work hard to survive; spending some few meseta on cheap ale and liquor was the only pleasure they could afford. Neither barmaid was attractive; their skin cast back the lamplight from a sheen of oil and sweat, their hair hung in lank strands, and there was no laughter in their eyes, only sullen frowns on their faces to confirm that they, too, were working hard and joylessly.

Ned Crain was at the same table as before, again flanked by two men. There was a look of smug pleasure on his face, but it died at once when he saw Tera and Janyn enter the tavern.

The magistrate wasted no time in declaring their purpose.

"Ned Crain! By my authority as a Kadary Magistrate, you are hereby placed under arrest for the attempted murder of Dolan Brent and for criminal conspiracy. Give yourself over to custody." The formal phrases rolled easily off her tongue, somehow suited to her, and stilled the room.

"Are you serious?" Crain said with a mocking tone. Janyn found the notion of Tera being anything _but_ serious almost laughable, himself.

"Come with us or we will take you by force," was her response.

"I see. I have choices, do I?" He rose to his feet. "Now let me see. I think I'll...Get them!" he suddenly roared, obviously hoping to catch them by surprise.

It was so obvious. With his type, it always was. The only real question was how many of the men and women in the bar were his, would aid in his defense. His two bodyguards, of course, and in addition there were two others, one at a table and one at the bar. Knives were out, and thick batons of wood, truncheonlike clubs. One had a hook, almost like would be used on a boat, not that there was one within miles.

Janyn crashed his forearm into the man who'd come lunging up from the table on his left side. The thug reeled back, crashing into the table and into the wall. Simultaneously Janyn's right hand plucked a dagger from his waist and whipped it up in an underhanded throw. One of the thugs went down with the blade in his chest, clearing the way to Crain. A general stampede seemed to engulf the fight, not interfering but flowing around it on the way to the door like a river rushing around a rock outcropping.

The rush of the crowd momentarily caught up the man on Tera's side, all but swallowing him. She, however, did not lose track of him, pointing and launching a Wat technique. The chilling bolt struck him down, freezing organs and blood within him.

That left two.

Crain's corner table had a serious strategic flaw. While it gave a perfect vantage point for seeing who was where in the tavern, it had no secondary route of escape. Crain and his bodyguard were pinned in the corner by Janyn and Tera; the only way out was through them. The pairs faced one another, virtually alone now. The customers had gone, one barmaid with them. The second barmaid was cowering beneath a table, while the taverner had taken cover behind the bar. There was no cover, no rescue, for Crain and his lackey, save by going through the hunter and magistrate.

Tera glared hard at the man, and for a moment Janyn thought she was just trying to intimidate them into surrender, but then both staggered as if struck dizzy. The yet-nameless thug's eyes rolled up in their sockets and he fell with a thud, while Crain staggered like a drunk and thumped the side of his head with his hand as if trying to knock out whatever fog clouded it.

She'd spoken no word, made no gesture of command, so Janyn could only assume this was one of the arts her church had taught her. Had he been expecting it, he could have easily disarmed, even captured Crain while he was shaking off its effects, but since he'd been caught by surprise he was late with his attack.

Then suddenly he jerked backwards, breaking off his strike when he saw something that he should not have seen. The shadows clustered in the roof corners that lamp and candle could not reach were weeping, streams of darkness flowing down the wall like the raindrops had on the outside earlier that day. Crain, of course, had no idea what was happening behind him and so launched an attack, and it was only Janyn's combat-seasoned reflexes that let him parry the swinging club with his sword and twist his abdomen away from the knife in Crain's other hand. His sword-edge had bitten into the wooden truncheon with the force of the blows, and he used that as a lever to rip the weapon free of Crain's hand.

The flowing darkness coalesced into a poll at the base of the wall, then suddenly rose up, a manlike figure of living shadow, pure darkness given form except for two burning eyes.

"By the Holy One!" Tera whispered in shock or surprise.

Janyn backpedaled, not wanting to give ground but considering it idiotic to be caught up in a bladefight while a new and unknown threat was taking shape. Crain himself caught on at last and turned his body sideways from Janyn so he could glance back without having to turn his hand all the way around.

The shadow figure's right arm raised, and a spike of burning light took shape, as if the dark creature was holding a sword of fire in its hand. It swept its arm up to strike an overhand blow at Crain, and Tera took the first step against it, hurling another Wat technique. The freezing bolt burst against the shadow figure, as if it struck a solid body, but had no visible effect. The creature's hand was not stayed; the burning sword swept down, cutting into Crain's body.

The crooked carter screamed and staggered backwards as Janyn moved in past him. No blood flowed, the hunter realized, from the injury dealt, but there was time to worry about that later.

He hoped.

His sword crashed against the burning blade, parrying the first two strikes, but he couldn't ready a counter. It wasn't that the shadow figure was especially skilled, but it didn't seem to have to follow the rules of nature. Its arms rippled in strange ways, curved and bent in odd places. The heat from its blade was palpable; sweat beaded on Janyn's face as he continued to battle. The light shed by the sword seemed to wash across the creature, revealing that its face was not just a featureless black pool but a perfect silhouette whose black-on-black coloring made it impossible to recognize from across the room.

When Janyn saw its face, though, he made the mistake of meeting the shadow figure's eyes. The blue-white fires seemed to draw him in, capture all his attention, and try as he might, he could not turn his head away--or, as he realized in horror, could he move in any other way. His arms would not raise his sword, his legs not correct his footwork, and in another instant he felt himself crumple to the floor. He thought he was finished, but his opponent seemed to have no further interest in him once he was down. Instead, it moved on past, and from that point only the further screams of Ned Crain, punctuated by Tera's voice as she hurled two more Wats, presumably at the shadow figure, told Janyn what had happened. After an eternity of subjective time, though only a minute or two in reality, he regained control of himself and regained his feet.

The shadow figure was gone. Crain lay on the floor, his body ripped and slashed with bloodless wounds that had been burned by the searing fire of the monster's sword. In her corner, the barmaid was whimpering mutely, hands across her face. Tera's hands were clenched into fists at her side and she wore a furious scowl.

With a heavy sigh, Janyn sheathed his blade.

"We had it all wrong," he said dully. Crain was a bastard, an extortionist and murderer, he told himself, but it wasn't any consolation. The ruin before him had once been a man, cut down by an unnatural horror. It wasn't even a biomonster kill; this was something...else, something vile, something _evil_ that he'd been powerless to stop.

Maybe that was it, he told himself. Not the fact of Crain's death--hadn't Janyn himself not just killed one of Crain's lackeys, a lesser evil, during the fight?--but that he'd been beaten, swept aside in the creature's single-minded pursuit of its victim.

Tera, too, was obviously angry and frustrated, but she shook it off, literally shaking her head as if the simple movement could toss away her emotions, and perhaps its did. Certainly when she spoke it was crisp and matter-of-fact as she ticked the points off on her skeletal fingers.

"There were no signs of forced entry because the creature can obviously twist and distort its form as it likes, possibly even becoming two-dimensional like a genuine shadow, and so enter by means impossible for a more substantial entity. Likewise, it left no traces of itself in terms of footprints, hair, clothing fibers and so on because it has a very tenuous physical reality. The wounds were cauterized not because the blade was heated for purposes of torture but because the nature of the weapon itself is to be red-hot; this was merely incidental rather than being relevant as to motive. Lastly, there was no sign of a struggle at either crime scene because the darkside's paralyzing gaze made it impossible for the targets to resist."

Janyn pounced on the one thing in Tera's listing that gave him some kind of hope.

"You said...'darkside'? You know what that thing is? It has a name?" Names were powerful, not mystically or symbolically but in the mind. A name, a label, was a defining feature. A "darkside" had certain qualities and attributes, things it could and could not do. It was not the terrifying, alien Unknown.

She nodded.

"I _believe_ so. It fits the description of a creature of legend. The darkside is hatred given form, rage come to life. It is the spirit of a person's fury animated by unholy magic to go forth and wreak vengeance on the ones who its creator despises."

"So are you saying that someone called that thing up? That it's a weapon of murder?"

Tera snarled in sudden anger and Janyn actually jerked back at the vehement outburst, thinking she was mad at him, but that was not the case.

"I'm sorry; I spoke imprecisely and gave you a false impression. The darkside is not under anyone's _conscious_ control, though I suppose a powerful Esper could have done so. It's more of...a reaction to unholy forces. The dark power is there, around us, a taint on the mystic environment like alkali in the soil or poison in a well. We reach into that power to perform techniques, but in this case the darkside is conjured forth without will, without intent. The power reacts to the strong, violent emotions; the subconscious shapes it, gives it form. You'll notice that it appears at night only, and so far at regular every-other-day intervals?"

"I see," Janyn mused, counting the timing out in his own mind. "A rational plan of murder wouldn't use such a rigid chronology."

"It's unlikely. Probably it takes a day to 'recharge,' to gather strength to reappear, just as we have to rest before regaining our own full ability to use techniques. I suspect it appears at night because it arises from its creator's dreams, when the subconscious has full sway."

"So even though the darkside is killing those its creator hates, fixating on them, really, the one whose emotions created it is not actually guilty of anything. He doesn't control the creature." Janyn was sure, now, that was what she meant, but he wanted her to say it.

"As far as my knowledge goes, yes, that is so." Her eyes narrowed. "Your concern with the creator's guilt or innocence seems pointed, Janyn. Do you suspect your client, because the victims have been his enemies?"

He shook his head.

"No, not exactly."

"Then what?"

"I _know_ Brent gave rise to that thing. I got a very close look at it by the light of its own sword. The darkside is wearing Brent's face."


	11. Chapter 11

"Three more corpses and two more prisoners," Trevor Paul snarled through clenched teeth. "If you'd bothered to call me, Magistrate, some of this could be avoided."

Tera was in no way intimidated by the guard sergeant's anger. Even after watching a supernatural monster appear and slaughter a man in front of her, she showed no sign of backing down, of being shaken in her confidence. Faith lent conviction, Janyn supposed. He wasn't so certain for his own part; his mind kept circling around "what ifs" and "maybes" in some backwards desire to blame himself. Or maybe just to find some hope that there had been a better outcome than this carnage.

"I fail to see how," she stated. "Unless I am sorely mistaken about your knowledge of the occult, you would have been no better prepared to save Crain's life than we were. Conversely, it is possible that your presence and that of several guards might have persuaded Crain's associates not to defend him against arrest, but I hardly consider that a benefit."

"You think it was _better_ that you and the hunter fought these men?"

"Of course. They were criminals, obviously, but there were no charges against them being Crain's associates. You would have had to free them to commit future crimes, an inevitable result of their characters. Now, two are dead. They have tasted the fruit of their unrighteousness and been purged; they will trouble Morova no more. The other two are guilty of assaulting a law officer and aiding a criminal to resist arrest. They can now receive a just punishment for these crimes. No innocents were killed or injured. How is this not a positive outcome?"

Paul stared at her, open-mouthed, while she met his shock and surprise with calm certainty. One of the guards engaged in the busywork of arresting the living and removing the dead snickered; whether it was because he agreed with Tera or just enjoyed his superior's discomfiture Janyn didn't know.

"People are dead!"

"Our job is to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. They made their choice to step off the righteous path and I will not mourn them. My concern is stopping the darkside before it kills again."

"Why, if it's only killing criminal scum?" Paul sneered. It was obviously meant as a rhetorical insult, but Tera took it as a serious question.

"Firstly, because it has no legal right to kill anyone, regardless of the victim's virtue or the lack thereof. Secondly, were Victor Tyrell and Ovan Prentiss 'criminal scum,' as you put it? Thirdly, because if it is not stopped it will surely kill and kill again, and none of us can name the victims. Can you not see that or do you merely resent that someone other than yourself has identified the killer?"

Paul glared at her, brow furrowed, his entire body taut with emotional strain. Then, his shoulders shrugged, the tension left him, and he actually laughed, completely surprising Janyn.

"I guess you believe in plain speaking, Magistrate Serin. Okay, so maybe I was a little out of line. I guess I don't like the idea of having a mess like this in my town and not being able to stop it. Especially when I've got outsiders coming in and getting ahead of me."

Tera unbent a little, but not very far.

"We are both agents of law and justice, Sergeant. We have a duty that cannot be shirked. Doing the job well is all that matters."

Her attitude took the edge off Paul's sudden good humor, and Janyn felt compelled to step in before the good will evaporated entirely.

"Since we're all on the same page now, I think we need to come up with a plan of action to stop the darkside before it kills again."

"Yeah...about that," Paul responded, scratching at his stubbled chin. "Are you sure about this shadow-man thing? I mean, some kind of killing creature made of darkness and hate? It sounds like a hearth-story to scare kids."

"I saw it," Janyn said coolly, his own goodwill evaporating in an instant. "I saw it enter the inn, I fought it, and I was beaten by it. Tera saw it; she actually had a better perspective, not up in its face like I was. If two 'outsiders' aren't trustworthy enough witnesses for you, hunter and Kadary Magistrate or not, then the barmaid saw it too. The taverner might have, if he peeked over the bar for a look." He'd gone from sympathetic to furious in an instant, a reflection of just how on edge he was. Was Tera as badly shaken? Janyn couldn't tell; he didn't know her well enough. It could explain why she was so snappish.

Somehow, though, he doubted it. The bright-line judgments and rigid standards were just...her.

"I'm not saying that you aren't truthful. It's just hard to believe that the killer isn't human, isn't even a biomonster, but something genuinely supernatural."

"The art of magic may have been lost nearly a thousand years ago, but that does not mean that the supernatural has gone, only that we have lost touch with it," Tera explained.

"So how do you fight something like that?"

"That's what I'm hoping to find out. We're returning to Kadary at once. The Church of Zio has one of the most extensive occult libraries in Motavia. Hopefully, we will learn how to banish this creature."

"And what do we do in the meantime, while you're off reading books?"

She took the question seriously.

"Deal with the various survivors of the Crain gang as Morovan law requires. Inspect Crain's business records to see if they implicate anyone in smuggling, bribery, or similar crimes. Most importantly, keep Dolan Brent under house arrest."

"Brent!" Paul's gaze shot to Janyn, seeing if the hunter reacted to this apparent accusation of his client and was surprised when Janyn did not at once speak up. "How is he involved in this?"

Janyn had no idea what to say. He hardly wanted to tell the sergeant that the darkside had taken life from Brent, especially if, as Tera seemed to be implying, Janyn would be accompanying her to Kadary. He did not want to leave the door open for some intemperate local mob to come up with what they thought was a more direct solution than waiting for an exorcism.

"Ned Crain sent a man to kill Brent tonight. As we told you, that's why we came here," Tera answered. Janyn listened in surprise as she explained her point. "Perhaps you have a better idea from local knowledge, but I can't be certain that these were his only lackeys, or that he might have a lieutenant waiting to step into his shoes. There could be reprisals, if a gang decides to start a war against a wealthy trader. Morova has, I think, sufficient evils for now."

"I can't deny that. A few guards ought to keep Brent safe, but also prevent him from doing something stupid. But what about the darkside? If it holds to pattern it will kill someone else in two nights."

"We should be back by then."

"From Kadary? That's not a one-day trip by any means."

"On foot, yes, but we'll travel by Ryuka."

So, she knew the long-range teleportation technique.

"I see. Will you be leaving in the morning?"

"There's no reason to waste time. Janyn? Let's be going."

He shrugged. Why not?

-X X X-

Kadary was a thriving trade-town, the central hub of the Kadary Basin. The size showed; despite the velvet darkness above there was plenty of light from doors and windows as well as regularly placed street-lamps. Where Morovans were largely settling into bed, Karadites were just starting into the business of the night.

Janyn shook his head in amazement as the new surroundings took shape. As a hunter he was well aware of the potential power of techniques, had even mastered the use of some himself. Far more, though, than the ability to conjure flame and ice, to knit back flesh and bone, to instill sleep or charge with speed and strength, it was the teleportation techniques that awed him. How Tera could speak a single word and move the two of them dozens of miles in an eyeblink was beyond him; he could not comprehend it. It worked, he'd experienced Ryuka before and had just done so again, but he could not really _understand_ it. It always astonished him every time he experienced it.

It was something he had to take on faith, so every occurrence was therefore a miracle.

"Zio's church is in the northwest corner of town. It's a bit of a walk, so let's get going."

With that, she suited actions to words and set off at once. Tera's stride was brisk, clearly focused on the purpose of getting from one point to another without additional time being spent on the journey. Her walk was even more purposeful now that she was back on her home ground, and Janyn had to scuttle to keep up while still gaining any meaningful impressions of the town.

The thought that struck him was that Kadary was a very claustrophobic place. It was a walled town, with nearly the population of Aiedo but around half the land area, so buildings were packed close together, sometimes even touching one another, and two-story homes and shops were not uncommon. Janyn had picked up the population information somewhere along the way but had never actually visited Kadary, so seeing the real-life application of the facts made quite an impact on him. The narrow streets and obstructed view made him feel almost like he was walking through an underground cavern or narrow canyon, a feeling he'd never had in any other town or village on Motavia. This was perhaps the only settlement on the underpopulated planet where space was at a premium.

It gave the hunter an itch between the shoulder blades, like he was in the wilderness rather than the safety of a town.

Not, he amended the thought, that towns were necessarily all that safe. Morova, for example, had had five deaths by violence in the past five days. Although it generally was not in so literal a fashion, the events illustrated the point that human hatreds and failings could be much more dangerous than the environment, even more than monsters.

The people they passed in the street were an ordinary cross-section of life, wealthy and poor, male and female, some calmly going about their business and some furtive, with eyes that would not meet anyone else's. The presence of rag-clad beggars sickened him as it always did; some cried out for alms while others merely sat, slumped over their bent knees, worn out by exhaustion or simply resigned from despair. It was depressing, but no surprise; the larger the settlement, the easier it was for individuals to fall through the cracks, whether by their own weaknesses or the pressure of evil circumstances.

What did surprise Janyn was that about one in every four people he passed was wearing a black mantle like Tera's, marking their allegiance to the Church of Zio. He'd heard the rumors, but had no idea how widespread the new religion truly had become. They were a significant minority in town.

He didn't know if he thought that was a good thing or not. Faith brought comfort and security to those who had it, but it could often be misguided or used in place of thinking an issue through. Or was he just being cynical because he himself had none?

"This town makes the back of my neck itch," he said to Tera. "I wonder if I'm a touch claustrophobic, or something?"

"The population density is high," she agreed. "In the last two decades, I understand that the town has steadily grown as a center of trade. More recently, there has been an influx of Zio's followers like myself, who have begun new lives in the church."

"It doesn't bother you at all?"

"Why should it?"

He shrugged.

"Maybe no reason. I just feel like I'm walking through a tunnel or cave, almost, and in my line of work that usually means that carrion crawlers will drop from the ceiling, blobs ooze out from cracks in the wall, or shriekers are ready to shoot their toxic spores into living prey."

"The only monsters in Kadary are those dwelling in human hearts that have not yet adapted to the path of the righteous," she said with complete confidence. Janyn figured she was probably right about there being no biomonsters, but from what he'd seen, the human ones were worse, anyway.

Idly, he wondered which category Morova's darkside fell into.

The direction of his thoughts turned sharply as the streets opened up into a kind of plaza or square. The open space gave him an unblocked view of the skyline, and he could see what had to be Zio's church. Only, _church_ didn't seem to be an adequate description. It was more like a grand cathedral, towering above everything else, higher than the city walls. Numerous spires thrust upwards from the main body of it like claws slashing at the sky. It was hewn from, or at least covered in, some purplish-black stone that resembled nothing that Janyn knew. The color should have been nearly invisible against the night sky, but it was not; the cathedral's outlines were clearly defined and almost luminescent. Perhaps that was the purpose of the oddly-colored stone, or the color might have been a function of a treatment by the builders to cause the luminous effect, but either way Janyn found it neither majestic nor in any way comforting. It was _frightening_, and he surprised himself at just how fast he was willing to put that word to his feelings; as a grown man and a trained hunter he did not think it would have been so easy to admit that he was scared of a _building_.

But he was.

And it was the building they were going towards.

Perhaps because of his feelings, it seemed no time at all passed before they walked through the towering archway that was the church's entrance.

"No door?" he asked, again surprised when he saw that not only was the church open despite the hour, but that the arch was only an arch and there was no way to close or even block it.

"Lord Zio's blessings are available to anyone at any time," Tera said. "We turn away none who would seek to join us, be they rich or poor, strong or weak, king or beggar. All are welcome to seek the truth within."

Janyn appreciated the sentiment, if not necessarily the reality. The church had high, vaulted ceilings, and he got the impression that there weren't any windows, although that may not have been so, but there were no lingering shadows even in the furthest corners. Scores of huge candles in giant, multibranched candelabra were seemingly everywhere, spreading light as if they were saints with crowns of fire. Oddly, though that many candles should have shed considerable heat, these did not seem to. On the contrary, the church seemed faintly chilled, perhaps simply because each room was so large.

Tera obviously knew where she was going; she took Janyn through a set of corridors and up a flight of stairs that curved around one of the round spired towers. A short hallway led to a closed door, wood and metal-bound, with no handle. Tera knocked sharply, showing a touch of impatience. After a moment, a panel in the door swung open to reveal a pair of pale blue irises set in very yellow orbs. Then the panel shut and there was the sound of iron bolts being drawn back.

"Ah, Tera, come in!" said an old man in a floor-length blue robe and black surcoat. His scalp was bare, though a pointed white beard fell to just over his heart. Though his skin looked almost as jaundiced as his eyes, his posture and physique gave a general impression of health. Janyn found it faintly amusing that the old man was such an opposite of Tera, who gave a general impression of sickliness though the secondary indicators countered that.

"Good evening, Malthes. We need to use the library."

"More research, then? And who is your friend? A new face among the brethren?"

Tera shook her head, perhaps impatient with the need to follow the social conventions.

"It's magistrate business, I'm afraid. I need to find some kind of exorcism ritual or method. This is Janyn; he's a hunter who is assisting me on this case."

"Oh, I see. Well, in that case, I will leave you to it. Just ring when you are finished and whomever should be on duty will come."

"Thank you, Malthes."

"May the Holy One's blessings guide your search."

"As he guides our lives," she replied, obviously as part of a formula.

Malthes turned and left the room, and Tera told Janyn to bolt the door behind him. He did as she said, but not without curiosity, so he finally gave up and just asked.

"Tera, why are we bolting out the librarian? There's no keyhole or handle for him to get back in."

She nodded.

"Some of these books have great power, and most contain knowledge that could be tragically misused. Therefore, this library must always be attended, and only the attendant can admit anyone into the room."

Janyn followed at least some of the argument.

"You mean, in case someone just walked into the church through the open door and tried to get in here?"

"Correct. There's no lock to pick, no way for an outsider to get in without being let in, which none of us would do."

"You let me in."

She looked at him, genuinely startled by his comment.

"But you're with me."

Now he was startled too, at the simple innocence in Tera's voice.

"Maybe so, but I'm still not one of you Zioites."

"You may not yet walk the Way, but you have a righteous heart. Now, to work! We have a great deal to do."


	12. Chapter 12

Although Tera's language had been inclusive, the truth of it was that Janyn soon found himself over his head, best able to contribute in the single task of fetching books for the magistrate or returning them when she was done. He was a literate man, but reading through archaic texts, often badly scrawled manuscripts rather than printed books, was a scholar's job and that he was not. In some cases, even the language was different, having changed over centuries or millennia to the point where it was difficult for him to even follow.

For her part, Tera showed an easy proficiency with the texts that spoke of extensive formal education and experience both. It wasn't just that she understood the material, but that she could efficiently search for what she wanted and knew how to extract the information from the books. As she worked, she covered several sheets of paper with notes in a flowing, almost scrawled handwriting. Details and cross-references revealed themselves, but the basic truth escaped her.

It was well after midnight, and Janyn's stomach was reminding him insistently that he hadn't had anything to eat, when Tera threw her pen down in frustration.

"Hints and half-truths!" she exclaimed. "I've been through enough of the theory that I could construct the ritual itself if I had a week, but there isn't that much time! I've already read six times over that the darkside is exactly what I thought it was--a patch of black magic that has become entwined with Dolan Brent's soul, given life and shape and form by his hatred--but so far no one seems interested in recording a process to disentangle that magic from his spirit."

"Once darkness has taken root in a man's soul, it takes more than a simple spell to remove it."

Janyn and Tera spun in surprise. There was no way that someone could have been hiding in the library; it was just too small for that, with no places of concealment. The door was bolted and didn't even have a way to be opened on the outside. Yet there he was, dressed all in black, with elaborate shoulder-guards from which a full-length cape fell. His hair was long and as jetty as his garb, and even his eyes were small, dark points. Small wonder Janyn's hand went to his sword hilt as he turned.

"H-Holy One!" Tera stammered, awestruck.

"Holy One?" Janyn repeated, then to the tall, dark man asked, "You're Zio?"

"Only faith in something greater can truly set a soul free," the dark figure continued, then to Janyn added, "I am, hunter."

He made an impressive appearance, Janyn had to admit. Zio was tall and handsome, if a bit on the slim side, and the fanciful armor added a suggestion of size to his body. So much black was a little unsettling, though, the color choice not what one would expect from a religious leader, a prophet. The sheer intensity of Zio's gaze was even more disturbing; it felt almost as if the man's scrutiny went right down to a person's soul.

"You do not have faith," he decided. "You have ideals, but you have seen them betrayed too often."

_The crackle of flames as they licked at a woman's feet._

_Chains clanking as they dragged in the sand._

_The soft creak of rope, as a corpse twisted in the hot desert wind._

"You see the flaws, the corruption of the world, but you do not see the hope for the future. You do not trust that the unrighteous shall be purged, this vale of tears swept clean."

Too much truth can be extremely uncomfortable for anyone, and Janyn found himself suddenly angered.

"How did you get in here?" he challenged.

"_Janyn!_" Tera exclaimed, shocked.

"This is my house, hunter, not yours, and I may go where I like." Zio's voice grew quiet and still, and his next words were spoken with that complete lack of emotion that invariably means a raging passion held in check and channeled towards a goal. "You are my follower's guest, and it is not your place to dictate to me." The air seemed to quiver with the man's will, and Janyn sensed a force more tangible than that of personality alone.

Zio swept his left hand free of the cloak and reached up to the nearest shelf, hooking his finger over the top of a book.

"I believe this will contain what you seek, my faithful magistrate." He paused, as if consulting his memory or, Janyn thought crazily, as if the book itself was speaking to him. "You will find it in the thirty-fourth stanza. I suggest, though, that you avoid the remainder of the book; the writer was more misguided than most and his madness lingers in the pages in ways even I find unsettling."

He took down the book and extended it to Tera, who received the_ Testament of Xayn_ with trembling hands.

"Thank you, Holy One."

"You are welcome, though thanks are hardly necessary. Every just act you perform is a witness to our calling, a welcome message concerning the righteous path." He favored her with a gentle smile and added, "You should take better care of yourself, Theresa. You drive yourself too hard, without stopping to refresh yourself." He flicked an appraising gaze at Janyn, then stepped back. Zio made an odd gesture, and was gone, transported away by some art or magic.

The hunter was painfully aware of the cold stripe of sweat that pinned his garment to his spine.

"So...that was your Lord Zio," he said.

"I can't believe that he actually came to help us without being asked!" Tera marveled.

"The ritual is in there, then?" Janyn asked her, nodding at the _Testament._

"Of course! He said so, didn't he?"

The hunter wondered what it would be like to have that kind of wide-eyed faith, that pure certainty that at least one person's word could be implicitly trusted without the need to analyze or second-guess. In a way, he envied her.

"It's a good thing that the Holy One is not so petty as the common herd," she added, her voice turning stern. "I'm not sure but that I would have turned and walked out after being insulted the way you did to him."

"I was surprised. I didn't expect to meet anyone in a locked room that cannot be opened from the outside. Come to think of it, how did he do that? The teleportation techniques, Hinas and Ryuka, aren't precise enough to step into particular rooms."

"You are correct; they are not." Tera clearly spoke from expert knowledge, which really should have been no surprise since she had already proven she knew Ryuka. "His power is not that of techniques; he is the Holy One, and carries within himself the blessings of divinity."

Before, Janyn had dismissed Tera's claims about Zio as being religious puffery, exaggerations of the truth so that he could neatly categorize Tera's own abilities. Now that he had met the man face-to-face, though, he wasn't so sure. It wasn't just the appearing-and-disappearing trick, impressive as it was; Zio carried with him a presence, almost an aura of something more than human, a force beyond what could be seen or touched or sensed by an ordinary person.

To be completely honest, he had to admit that he, a hunter whose day-to-day living was made tracking and exterminating hideous monsters whose sole purpose seemed to be inflicting violent death, was frightened by Zio. Even the darkside hadn't been half as unsettling as the prophet of Kadary. But was he really frightened of the man himself? Or was it what he represented, a greater mystery than he could fathom? Janyn couldn't pin his feelings down, and that bothered him.

Then again, everything about this job had bothered him in one way or another.

"It's here!" Tera cried excitedly. When Janyn hadn't responded to her last statement, she'd simply gone back to her research, flipping through the_ Testament of Xayn_ to find the section Zio had indicated.

"The exorcism?"

"Yes; this is a ritual spell designed to purge dark magic from a living host." She frowned disapprovingly and said, "The author of this book apparently gave his followers to darkness and considered it a _punishment_ to strip them of the powers of black magic."

"Zio was obviously right about the writer being mad," Janyn agreed. "Can you trust the instructions?"

Tera nodded.

"I believe so. Parts, at least, match up with the fragments I've been collecting all night, and the whole stands together on a theoretical basis."

Janyn shook his head, surprised.

"I'm impressed, Tera. I know a lot of hunters who are primarily tech-users, and even they don't have any practical understanding of old-time ritual magic."

"Well, it was my field," she explained. "The correlation between techniques, magic, and skill was my principal study before I joined Zio's church."

"Field of study? You were at Motavia Academy in Piata, you mean?"

"Yes."

A scholar who'd turned to religion. It was an interesting decision to make with one's life, and he wished he knew her well enough to feel comfortable asking--though to be fair, he doubted Tera would be offended. She'd just answer or not as she saw fit.

"I guess that makes you the expert, then," he said, sticking to business.

"There are a few items we'll need as reagents and materials for the ritual--candles, certain powders and inks. We should be able to obtain all of them here in Kadary once the markets open."

"Good. That means I can actually get some sleep." Janyn yawned loudly. "This evening is really starting to catch up with me, especially as it's well after midnight. I don't suppose you know of any inns that are still open this late--especially ones that are still serving food?"

She looked at him in surprise.

"Food? Janyn, why would anyone want to eat at this hour?"

"Speaking for myself, it's because I've been too busy fighting men and spirits, talking to the village guard, teleporting across miles of desert, and rooting around in an excessively creepy occult library to have dinner, and therefore haven't eaten anything in over twelve hours," he summed up dryly. "It works up an appetite, too."

"Oh! I...I didn't even think about that."

"No, you were just so focused on your goal that you didn't stop to think about the side issues." Janyn had a pretty good idea why Tera was so cadaverously thin. She probably ate on her own about once every other day, if she didn't have something more important to do.

She blushed lightly, which looked particularly strange with the crescent-moon tattoo bisecting the pink flesh.

"I'm sorry."

Janyn shrugged.

"Dedication is a good thing; just remember to take care of yourself. Even Zio just reminded you to take some time for rest and food." Janyn had to give the so-called Holy One that; he was observant enough to know Tera's ways and cared enough to tell her that she needed to look after herself.

"I'd...forgotten that, once I'd started looking up the ritual. Just let me copy it down so we can leave the _Testament of Xayn_ here, and then we can both see about finding a meal and sleep. If need be, you can be my guest, since it was my fault you've been denied both."


	13. Chapter 13

Janyn ended up sleeping on the floor, because by the time they were actually done at the church it was two past midnight and the inns were locked up for the night. Tera had offered him the bed, on the theory that it was her fault he didn't have a room for the night, but he'd declined.

"I'm the hunter," he told her. "I'm used to roughing it in the wilderness, so I'll get more rest than you would on the floor." She'd accepted that as true, though Janyn wasn't entirely sure of it, given Tera's ability to ignore personal discomfort when she had something else in mind.

Still, he slept like a log, surprisingly untroubled by dreams of burning-eyed shadows or of Zio, who reminded Janyn somewhat of a living shadow himself. Perhaps it was hope that had cleared his spirit, hope born in the fact that the creature had a name and that they had a way to fight it, even if--to him--that way was as intangible and strange as the shadow itself. Or maybe it was just being out of Morova, with its petty hatreds and lurking fears, of not being in the eye of the emotional storm that had possessed the people there--not the least of whom was his own client.

Late to bed meant late rising, even for Tera; it was well past midmorning before they'd awakened, breakfasted, and begun their search through Kadary's markets for the items Tera would need for the ritual. Some of these were easy to locate, but others proved to be trickier, and after a couple of hours Janyn's temper was starting to suffer.

"What's the point of all this, anyway?" he finally gave up and complained when the sixth straight shop had been out of sion dust.

"We need these ingredients to exorcize Brent, to disperse the evil power that animates his hatred as the darkside," Tera replied, giving him the kind of dubious look one saves for the mentally defective. "I thought you understood that."

"No--I mean, yes, I do, but that's not what I meant. I mean, why is all this ritual necessary? When I use a technique, I concentrate for a moment, say a word, and it's done. Whatever arts your religion has taught you seem to work the same way, to judge by last night."

"The mindblast I used on Crain and his thugs? Yes, that is correct. The ritual is quite different."

"Yes, I gathered. How?"

"You're asking for an education on the nature of magical theory now, in the middle of a job?"

"Yes, damn it, I am. This makes no sense to me, none of it. I have no idea why I'm carrying sacks of herbs and chemicals and general bric-a-brac. All I know is that you're following the instructions found in some old book written by a lunatic."

"That is so, but I did explain that those instructions were a logical progression from the research I'd done on my own."

Janyn sighed.

"None of which made any sense to me. None of which _makes_ any sense to me. I'm lost, here, stumbling blindly in the dark."

"I'm not," she said.

"I've only known you for two days," he replied bluntly. She stared at him, her expression enigmatic. Was she angry at being doubted, or at his recalcitrance to follow and therefore the delay he was causing?

"Lord Zio spoke truly," she said. "Though your heart is righteous, you have no faith. Sit down."

She gestured towards a gurgling fountain which depicted a warrior with a spear fighting a sea monster. The spear had impaled the serpent-like beast and its head was thrown back, bellowing in pain or fury while water sprayed from its open jaws. Janyn sat on the stone lip of the fountain and set the bags at his feet. Tera settled herself next to him.

"The power of magic," she stated without preamble, "comes from within ourselves. Espers could tap into that energy and use it in a variety of ways. However, just as even the strongest man cannot lift certain heavy loads, so too were there things for which an Esper needed more energy than he or she carried inside themselves. For this, they invented rituals. The art of ritual magic is to capture energies from the environment and store them, like calling upon extra laborers when one is not enough. Every part of the ritual, the incantations used, the symbols, the particular ingredients, are designed to harmonize with this purpose.

"Techniques do this as well, only the process is simple and elegant and is limited to the amount of power ordinary magic could tap anyway. Thus you might think of ritual magic as a kind of enhanced technique, designed to do things an ordinary technique cannot."

Her wide gray eyes looked searchingly at him. Behind their backs, water splashed into the fountain's pool.

"Is that enough for you to understand?"

"Probably enough, but it's enough that I doubt I'll understand any more," Janyn admitted. He bent, picked up the bags, and got to his feet. "I've made you wait long enough." He paused, then said simply, "Thank you."

Tera shook her head as she rose.

"It is my duty, nothing more. For the unworthy to fall is unfortunate, but in the end natural. For a righteous soul to step off the path solely for a lack of faith is a true tragedy." It wasn't a dig or a slap at him; she said it so earnestly, with a hint of sorrow, that Janyn felt stirrings of guilt for doubting her.

He sighed heavily. It was true; he did lack faith. He'd had it once, but it had been taken from him, stolen by force. The memories of that theft had crashed through his head in Zio's presence, as if somehow summoned up by the dark-clothed prophet's presence. Was that how and why the memories had called to him? As a counter to what he'd felt, what he'd feared inside Zio's church? And what had that been, anyway? Something as dark and ominous as it had seemed? Or was it just his soul recognizing a force alien to it and retreating from the implications?

Janyn thought about, a lot, while he and Tera finished the shopping. The magistrate made it easy for him; her conversation was quick and purely businesslike, without personal chatter. He still hadn't gotten anywhere, though, by the time Tera's Ryuka took them back to Morova.

In their absence, it seemed that Trevor Paul had done his part. A watchman--the same one from Tyrell's house--had Brent's door under guard, and more than likely a second man was in the garden. The sergeant himself was waiting with Brent in the same office where Janyn had first met his client.

"You!" Brent exploded when Janyn entered. "Where have you _been_? I hired you to protect me, and this imbecile of a sergeant has me under house arrest! He's been babbling about demons and shadows and who knows what else!"

"Sergeant Paul is keeping you here for your own protection, as well as for that of others," Tera stated. "Since your guilt in this matter is unconscious, it did not seem just to imprison you in a cell, but it was necessary for you to be held."

"Held? Why, damn it?"

"Because if you fled the village we would have to track you down in order to exorcize the darkside from your soul, and in the meantime more people might die."

"Exorcize?" Paul exclaimed. "Then you've found the answer?"

"Yes."

"What is this nonsense?" Brent bellowed. "Exorcism? What are you accusing me of?"

"Sit down and try to control yourself," Janyn snapped at him. "Maybe if you'd been any better at that, none of this would have happened and five people wouldn't be dead!"

Trembling with emotion, the merchant gave way as Janyn advanced into the room. Brent dropped back into his chair.

"As for any of this being nonsense, Sergeant Paul may not have been on hand last night, but _I was_. I saw a creature made of shadow wearing your face carve up Ned Crain like a piece of meat. I crossed swords with the thing and was nearly killed by it! Saya Lake is in a cell, scared out of her wits because she got a glimpse of that thing the night it killed her master! Tera calls the monster a darkside; stripped of all the fancy theory it's your hatred come to life and killing people that you're angry at."

"Wait a minute," the sergeant interrupted. "You didn't tell me that you recognized Brent's face on that thing last night!"

"That was my doing," Tera answered for Janyn. "I thought it best that you, and more importantly your men, not know that the darkside was tied to Brent until we had located the solution to the problem."

Paul glared at her.

"You mean, you didn't want us to hang him out of superstitious fear," he called a spade a spade.

"Yes."

"Can't say I blame you."

"What are you people _talking_ about?" Brent shouted. "Are you all mad?"

"Can't you see when you're getting off easy?" Janyn snapped at him. "Nine out of ten local guards _would_ just execute you and be done with it, even though Tera claims you're not purposely causing the darkside to kill. So instead of screaming and complaining, why don't you sit down, shut up, and thank your lucky stars that the law here actually cares about the fine details of guilt or innocence _and_ had the good judgment to call in an expert who might actually be able to destroy the monster!"

Brent looked with wide, shaken eyes from one face to another. He found no relief from Janyn's fury; Tera's implacable hardness offered no sympathy for a man who refused to accept the truth, and as for Paul, well, Janyn was right. The sergeant had seen Morova's mercantile order shattered in a matter of days. Whatever their sins, Tyrell, Prentiss, and even Crain had been part of the village's settled existence. One by one they'd been ripped away savagely, a horror visited upon the people of Morova until it was at last revealed that the horror was just that, a perversion in the natural order.

No, there would be no sympathy from Trevor Paul, either.

"T-this 'exorcism'...you really believe that it will end this for good?"

Tera nodded firmly.

"The darkside is not a sentient creature. It is merely power, a 'clot' if you will, of darkness that has taken root in your soul and takes its shape from what it finds there. The exorcism will remove and disperse that power so that it has no guiding force to direct it and so the hatred within you can no longer act despite your will." She glanced at the window. "It is almost dark. Once nightfall is upon us, we can begin, but I shall prepare things now."

"Do you need to be any special place?" Janyn asked.

"No, this room will be large enough. Mr. Brent must be present, of course, but anywhere I can draw the appropriate patterns will do."

Janyn set the satchel in which they'd packed the various reagents down on a table, and Tera began to unpack things. A copper brazier on a thin-legged tripod went in the center of the floor, and Tera put in carefully measured amounts of herbs and powders, checking her notes as she did so. When that was done, she began tracing out a symbol on the floor, an eight-pointed star made by two overlapping squares, ringed by a circle. She sketched the pattern in chalk on the stone floor first, then outlined each square and the circle in a different kind of jewel dust--amethyst, diamond, and sion. At each point where the gem trails met she placed a thin white candle. These would burn for no more than an hour each, so clearly the exorcism was not meant as an all-night affair.

The men watched her with varying reactions as she worked. Brent followed her every move with a wide-eyed stare, trembling in his seat. Paul's lip was slightly curled, a shade of the disbelief he'd shown the night before at the Red Dog. Even Janyn had to admit that he had his doubts; there was such a contrast between the methodical precision with which Tera made her preparations and the absurdity of what she did. The difference was, unlike the sergeant, Janyn had actually seen the living shadow, had crossed swords with it. He had proof, of a kind, that the absurdity, the madness was real.

For Brent, the terror was still for himself, for his own death. For Paul, it was still rooted in the unknown. For Janyn, it was of something very real and tangible, and as he was rapidly learning, sometimes the fears one imagines are _not_ worse than the reality.

"Very well," Tera announced, one she was through checking her preparations against her notes for the second time. "Janyn, do you know the Foi technique?"

"Yes."

"Excellent; please light the brazier. It needs to be ignited by power, not artificial means."

He wondered what she'd have done if he didn't have the technique, then realized the answer was obvious. Foi was among the most common of all techniques; by the simple law of averages there would be at least a half-dozen Morovans who could use it and she had the legal authority to summon them. Keeping the amount of power under tight control, Janyn held his hand above the brazier and called forth heat to set the brazier's contents alight. The flame roared up in a sudden burst, then settled down in seconds to a slow, gradual smolder releasing wisps of scented smoke.

"Thank you; I'm ready to begin. Brent, please stand there, opposite me. Janyn, Sergeant Paul, please remain outside the circle while the exorcism is proceeding."

They all followed her directions, the faint glow from the brazier painting their shadows weirdly across the office walls. As if instinctually, Janyn and Paul chose to stand next to one another, on Tera's side of the brazier. _Safety in numbers._

Tera took a spill from the fireplace, touched it to the brazier, and then lit the candles so that glittering points of light covered the floor. She then took her place, pressed her palms together, and began to chant.


	14. Chapter 14

The minutes passed slowly to the sound of Tera's recital. She chanted the syllables in a strong, confident voice, completely assured of her purpose. The candles flickered, tossing shadows across the walls and furniture, and more than once Janyn flinched as it seemed one moved unnaturally, in ways the light should not have sent it. Paul had the same reactions, though less often--not knowing the darkside's nature from experience, his fears were not so acute.

Brent, though, was clearly affected. Whether it was because he could actually sense some reaction within himself to the exorcism ritual, or just his imagination at work, he'd gone ashen pale and his body quivered with faint tremors. Watching him just made Janyn's nervousness worse, like fear was a disease that could be passed from victim to victim.

He supposed that it was.

The wax tapers began to dip as five minutes turned to ten, ten to fifteen, each candle resembling a twisted, abstract sculpture from the way the night breezes had shaped their melting. Only Tera showed no signs of change, no hint in her voice of any reaction to the mounting tension. Janyn would have sworn he saw a kind of haze clinging to Brent, as if the forces being pulled from his soul were being physically released.

He hoped not.

"Master Brent, Mama wanted to know if you and your guests were going to have dinner or--"

Janyn and Paul almost jumped out of their boots at the boy's high-pitched voice. They'd been so fixed on what was happening in front of them that the door opening on its well-oiled hinges had gone unnoticed.

"Damn it, Luka!" Brent screamed, rounding on the servant boy. "Can't you see that something important is going on!" Spittle flew from his lips as he shrieked, enraged, while all the while Tera's chanting never missed a beat. "Get out of here before I flay you alive!"

Luka flinched, then scuttled backwards, reaching for the door.

It was already too late.

If Janyn had not seen how the darkside animated at the Red Dog--and if, truth be told, he had not been half-expecting its presence--it might have been over at once. As it was, he pulled his sword free just as it rose up from the shadows on the floor, and his own blade interrupted the descending stroke.

The darkside's attention was barely on him; Janyn was an obstacle to the living shadow, nothing more. The object of Brent's stress-maddened rage was the boy. It left the creature distracted, not taking basic steps a human combatant would be aware of, and Janyn used the opportunity, freeing one hand from his sword-hilt to hurl a Foi technique against the darkside. Tera's Wats hadn't stopped it before, but perhaps fire had a better chance than ice.

The creature made no sound as the firebolt struck home; its body seemed to shimmer a bit in reaction, fading slightly into translucence at the point of impact, but it regained its shape at once, and Janyn was forced to parry two more strikes aimed at the boy. Luka had slumped to the floor, whether in a faint or because he'd met the darkside's paralyzing eyes, so running was not an option.

Then Paul was there, hurling himself into the fight. His heavy sword slashed down at the darkside's shoulder, the blade penetrating then slowing to a stop as if it had delivered a blow to flesh and bone. This impression was broken, though, when the shadow figure's arm rippled crazily and seemed to snap, thrusting the sword out of the instantly closing wound with such force that Paul staggered back a couple of steps.

Heat from the burning sword washed over Janyn as he fought the darkside desperately, even while almost certain it meant nothing in the long run. He'd learned from the battle in the inn, making certain not to meet the shadow creature's gaze. In truth, it was little handicap; he'd been taught to anticipate an enemy's reactions from posture, stance, and movement but the darkside didn't fight that way. Though humanoid in shape, it didn't have to follow the rules of ordinary matter, moving and bending in ways normal people with bones and joints weren't able to. Attacks came from nowhere and everywhere; the only constant was the flashing, burning brand of its sword.

Over the creature's shoulder he saw its source, Brent. The trader had shrank back against the wall, cowering in gibbering fear. If Janyn had ever doubted that the darkside was truly independent of Brent's will those doubts were now purged. The darkside may have carried out the wishes of his hatred, but it had done so on its own, the dark, secret dreams of Brent's soul brought to life without any moral force to hold them in check.

Tera, meanwhile, did not join the fight, but continued her chanting with only the faintest quaver. Was she truly unaware of the manifestation, Janyn wondered? Or was it something else--that her best way to help was to try and _finish_ the exorcism, destroying the darkside forever? It made sense, given that she'd been unable to defeat it at the Red Dog the previous night. Why waste effort on a course doomed to failure?

Not, Janyn thought, that _this_ course was any more promising. He and Paul were trying their best, but there was no way they could hold back the darkside for more than a couple of minutes at best, and it could be ten times that before Tera finished.

He struck out, seizing an opening, and sliced his own blade through the darkside's abdomen. Janyn could feel the increased drag on his arms as the shadow-stuff seemed to cling to his sword as it passed through. Like the injury Paul had given it, the gash Janyn cut seemed to heal over at once. Had he hurt it at all, depleted its supernatural reserves by some tiny amount with the attack? Or was it as truly ineffectual as it appeared? He couldn't know; he and the sergeant beside him could only fight on as best they could for as long as possible.

Unfortunately, "as long as possible" proved not to be so long at all. Paul thrust hard through the darkside's torso, but had trouble trying to free his sword, the shadowy flesh seeming to cling to it. Janyn lunged to protect him, but the darkside bent its sword arm at an impossible angle to deflect the hunter's sword with its elbow while slashing down with the burning blade. It seared a gash from shoulder to waist, cutting through the sergeant's armor and sending him reeling away from the fight. Janyn's heart sank, and his momentary shock and worry proved his undoing. The darkside slashed at him, while striking with its free hand, and while he blocked the burning sword he was knocked back, stumbling over Luka's body and crashing to the floor in an almost seated posture. More than one candle was tipped and extinguished as his sword went flying; Tera gave a quick gasp and ceased chanting, apparently sensing that the ritual was broken.

The darkside's blade swept up, ready to descend on the boy. It could kill helpless victims tortuously and slowly, but as it had shown with Crain could also kill quickly.

One of Janyn's daggers flashed past the shadow as its sword swept down. The blow never fell; the darkside simply ceased to exist in mid-swing, its shadow substance dispersing like vapor.

Janyn's aim had been true; the thrown weapon's hilt jutted macabrely from Dolan Brent's pierced eye socket.

The hunter's wordless howl echoed in the room, a pale reflection of what he felt.

-X X X-

The night was still and quiet as Janyn stepped out of the inn, his travel-pack slung over his shoulder. By all rights there should have been wind, a sandstorm, perhaps even thunder, but nature simply passed on. What did the skies care, after all, for the petty human dramas played out beneath them? Why, he thought, should the world at large care?

The innkeeper had been surprised at his request; nine at night was an hour more suited to checking in than out, but Janyn wanted nothing more to do with Morova, not for comfort's sake or any other reason. Better to start his journey now, and sleep clean under the stars.

"You're leaving?"

It was Tera's voice. He turned his head to see the magistrate approaching from the direction of the guardhouse. Apparently she and Sergeant Paul had completed their report on the case. Janyn admired the local guard's courage; though the burning sword's cauterizing effect had stopped him from bleeding so his would could be healed by a dose of Monomate, to immediately plunge back into work without any pause to rest took fortitude.

Maybe, like Janyn, he just wanted to be done with things.

"What's left for me here? There's no fee to be had; I killed my own client," he answered without really answering.

"You stopped the killer."

"I killed an innocent man."

"To save an innocent child!" she snapped back. "You killed a man whose soul was full of rancor, whose anger and hate would have continued to seek out victims until the darkside was exorcized. You had the power in your hands to make a choice, and you accepted the responsibility of choosing. Would you have preferred to let Luka die to save Brent?"

"I'd have preferred not to kill anyone!"

"That," Tera said matter-of-factly, "was not one of your choices."

"Do you think it's that easy?" he shot back at her, but Janyn knew it was a foolish question even as it left his lips. Of course she thought it was. Tera's world was one of devotion to her duty and faith in her Holy One. She believed in bright-line answers, right choices and wrong ones. To her it _was_ that easy.

That wasn't what she said, though.

"The burden of choosing is always hard," she told him softly. "To exercise your power by your will and determine an outcome is hard. Many people refuse that duty, abandoning their will to another. It's easier to be in my place, only watching the choice made and not having an opportunity to act."

"It shouldn't have happened at all! The darkside emerged every other night to kill. Why this and only this time did it strike two nights running?"

Tera sighed.

"I don't know that, Janyn. It might be that Brent's emotions grew more and more out of control, and being stronger they could more easily give form to the darkside. Perhaps the exorcism, by trying to pull the dark magic from out of Brent's spirit, made it easier for the darkside to manifest while it was in progress. Or perhaps it's simply that corruption of any nature is like that, the farther along that path one is, the faster one travels. For whatever reason, it happened, and you had to deal with that reality."

He stared at her, and it was if the sheer force of her confidence reduced him, stripped away layers of pretense until he said in a voice very much like a child's, "It isn't fair, Tera. Where was the justice?"

Tera returned his stare, her eyes wide and enigmatic, then at last reached out and pressed one emaciated, long-nailed hand to his chest, over his heart.

"The world has betrayed you again, hasn't it? I don't know how it has in the past, but it is not the first time."

"Your Zio said that," Janyn recalled.

"Come with me to Kadary," she invited.

"I don't have your faith."

She shook her head.

"Not to the church. Come and stand as a magistrate." While he was still adapting to the idea, she rushed on. "Your mind, your strong arm, your skill would be an asset to us...and for you, I think it would do you good to work daily beside others like yourself who believe in doing what's right, to know that even though the world is unjust there are those of us who truly want to make things better and will try our best for it. Mercenary work as a hunter is not enough for you any more; you know that."

Oh, Janyn knew it. He'd known it when he first took the job. He'd been hiding from this kind of work in ordinary monster-hunting tasks because he couldn't resist the appeal when it was before him--as he couldn't resist Brent--and he couldn't deal with what he encountered along the way.

"Ideals alone aren't enough," Tera said earnestly. "They have to have hope to stand on. If you cannot believe in a creed, then at least let me show you that there are other people in this world you can have faith in."

"Why?" he asked. "Why do you care so much?"

She blinked in apparent confusion.

"You are a good man in need," she said simply.

Perhaps she was right. Perhaps the answers _were_ that easy. Perhaps it was Janyn's own doubts that complicated things.

In truth, he envied it, the peace Tera's faith brought her. One thing was certain: he had found nothing but pain and lonely despair on his own path.

Perhaps, Janyn thought, it was time to follow another for a while.


End file.
